Nantahala Capital Disclosed 11.51% Activist Stake in $VSNT

Wilmot B. Harkey and Daniel J. Mack’s Nantahala Capital filed SEC 13D on December 6th and revealed 11.51% activist stake in Versant Corp (VSNT). As mentioned in the filing, Nantahala Capital now takes nearly 340 thousand shares in VSNT. Previously Nantahala Capital reported passive stake in VSNT on July 16, 2011. But the firm’s position at the end of the third quarter is unavailable. VSNT is now trading at $9.31, and has lost 22% so far in 2011.

Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies also invested in VSNT. The firm had about 196 thousand shares in the stock at the end of September, after a 3% decrease during Q3.

Nantahala Capital Management LLC serves as a financial investment advisory to its customers. Its clients include security portfolios, institutions, and businesses. Nantahala Capital’s investment strategy includes investing in small cap stocks, and using fixed-income instruments. Wilmot B. Harkey and Daniel Mack are serving as the manager partners of the firm. Nantahala Capital managed to beat the Russell 2000 index by 25 percentage points per year between August 2004 and April 2009.

Per Google Finance, Versant Corporation “is a provider of object-oriented data management software that forms a critical component of the infrastructure of enterprise computing. The Company designs, develops, markets and supports object-oriented database management system products that companies use to solve data management and data integration problems. It also provides related product support, training, and consulting services to assist users of products in developing and deploying software applications based on its products. It provides data management solutions designed to address data management needs. The Versant Object Database product is used primarily by larger enterprises which have significant large-scale data management requirements, such as technology providers, telecommunications carriers, government defense agencies, defense contractors, healthcare companies and companies in the financial services and transportation industries.”