Visium Asset Management Ups Passive CNMD Stake To Nearly 6%

Visium Asset Management, managed by Jacob Gottlieb, has boosted its stake in CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD). In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Visium Asset Management disclosed holding 1.62 million shares of the company. The stake equates to 5.9% of the company’s common stock, and is passive by nature. In its recent 13F filing, the fund reported ownership of 13,956 shares of CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD).

Jacob Gottlieb - Visium Asset Management

CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD) is a medical technology company that focuses on surgical devices and equipment for minimally invasive procedures. The company has a market cap of $1.0 billion.

Shares of the company traded up by 0.45% to $37.78 on Tuesday. Analysts have the consensus average target price of $45.10 for the company’s stocks. The consensus average recommendation is ‘Overweight.’

Earlier this month, CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD) announced that shareholders elected all of its director nominees, including Brian Concannon, Charles Farkas, Jo Ann Golden, Curt Hartman, Dirk Kuyper, Jerome Lande, Stephen Mandia and Mark Tryniski.

CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD)’s second-quarter 2014 diluted earnings per share increased to $0.37 from $0.34 in the same quarter of 2013, representing an increase of 8.8%. The company reported that its sales decreased by over 2% to $188.2 million in the second quarter, compared to the same period a year ago, because of weaker sales of general surgery devices, surgical visualization capital products and the discontinuance of the Cascade PRP product line. For 2014, the company forecasts total year sales to be in the range of $735-$745 million, compared to prior guidance of $770-780 million. Also, it changed total year adjusted earnings per share guidance to $1.85 – $1.95, compared to prior guidance of $1.90 – $2.00, according to a news release.

Other hedge funds betting big on CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ:CNMD) include Camber Capital Management, led by Stephen Dubois, which holds 1.39 million shares, and AQR Capital Management, run by Cliff Asness, which owns 256,229 shares of the company, according to our record.

Visium Asset Management was founded by Jacob Gottlieb in 2005. The hedge fund, which initially specialized in health care stocks, now manages over $3.5 billion in its broader range of holdings. Industrials, utilities, financials, energy, credit, special situations, risk arbitrage, convertible bond arbitrage, and macro and quantitative investments are the key investment interests of the fund.