Kevin Michael Ulrich’s Anchorage Advisors Buys Some Shares of Post-IPO Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co.

In a recent Form 4 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Anchorage Advisors, led by Kevin Michael Ulrich, disclosed buying some shares of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Co. (NASDAQ:HMHC). The fund purchased 72,818 shares in one transaction, the price amounting to $14.00 apiece. Following the addition of new shares, Anchorage via its affiliates holds around 17.5 million shares.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is a company engaged in publishing textbooks. A couple of days ago the company went public and offered for sale almost 18.3 million shares, which have been initially priced at between $14 and $16 apiece, but the final IPO price amounted to $12 per share. The shares in the IPO have been sold by the stockholders of the company, so Houghton Mifflin did not receive any gains from the IPO.

According to the S-1 form filed by the company, Anchorage was one of the largest stockholders of the company before its IPO. With a holding of 7.8 million shares, Anchorage owned 11.2% of the company’s common stock. The hedge fund with the largest stake was John Paulson‘s Paulson & Co., which trough its affiliates held almost 18.2 million shares, equal to 26% of the stock.

Earlier in 2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt filed for bankruptcy and entered into a plan of restructuring. The company emerged from bankruptcy later that year, and the shareholders of the company for their existing equity received warrants for new equity in the company.

Anchorage is a hedge fund with a focus on credit and special situations. It invests in various distressed opportunities and use the long/short and fundamentals-driven strategies for seeking investment opportunities. The largest stocks in the equity portfolio of the fund, according to its latest 13F filing are Central Pacific Financial Corp. (NYSE:CPF), with a holding which amasses almost 9.5 million shares; American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG), and Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE:SNV), in which the fund holds 2.3 million and 32.8 million shares respectively.

Disclosure: none

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