UTStarcom Holdings Corp (UTSI): Shah Capital Ups Stake to 28.3%

Shah Capital Management, a hedge fund run by Himanshu H. Shah has increased its stake in Chinese telecom infrastructure provider UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI) by almost 3 percentage points, to 28.34%. The investor has bought additional 628,992 shares and now holds 10.6 million shares. The Raleigh, North Carolina-based asset manager has first invested in the company in June, 2009, taking a 5% stake and has gradually increased its position since then. Currently, the stake in UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI) has a market value of $30 million and is the second largest holding from an equity portfolio valued at $134 million.

 UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI)

Himanshu H. Shah, which has been appointed as the Chairman of the troubled company in June, has slowly increased its stake in UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI) as the stock continued its decline on worsening business prospects and falling earnings per share. Since 2009, when the investor has first disclosed its stake, the company’s shares fell by more than 50%. The future does not seem to be rosy as well. At the last earnings call UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI) has given an outlook for earnings for the third quarter below analysts’ expectations, sending the stock price down further. It has rebounded since then and trades now at $3 per share.

Other investors that own UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI) include Phil Frohlich‘s Prescott Group Capital Management that has a stake of 2 million shares valued at $2.3 million and Chuck Royce‘s Royce & Associates with 1.1 million shares that have a market value of approximately $3.5 million. The fourth largest investor in UTStarcom Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:UTSI) from the hedge funds tracked by insidermonkey.com is Jim Simons with his fund Renaissance Technologies owning 344,197 shares that have a market value of $1 million.

Shah Capital was founded in 2005 by Himanshu H. Shah, a former UBS employee. The fund’s equity portfolio has a total of 15 stocks and is focused mainly on Chinese industrial and technology companies.

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