Why Are These Four Stocks Gaining Ground on Tuesday?

Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM)‘s shares have advanced by over 4% after the company announced that it plans to spin-off its China business into a publicly-traded company amid pressure from activist investor Keith Meister of Corvex Capital, who last week was appointed to its Board of Directors (see details). The new company will be a franchise of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) in Mainland China and will spend a part of its sales as payment to the parent company for exclusive rights to use the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell brands. The news has definitely pleased hedge funds, who were stockpiling shares of the company during the second quarter. Overall, the number of funds bullish on Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM) advanced to 59 from 45, while the aggregate value of their holdings surged to $4.06 billion from $1.49 billion during the second quarter and represented over 10% of the company’s value. Among them, Corvex Capital increased its stake to 15.29 million shares from 856,500 shares reported a quarter earlier, while another activist, Dan Loeb’s Third Point, inched up its position by 9% to 3.58 million shares (see what Loeb said about the company in his letter to investors for the first quarter).

Finally, Team Health Holdings LLC (NYSE:TMH) has advanced by over 16% so far today. Earlier today, Amsurg Corp (NASDAQ:AMSG) made public its bid to acquire Team Health Holdings LLC (NYSE:TMH) for $71.47 per share, or over $5.0 billion. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Team Holdings rejected the deal made on October 12, which led to AmSurg going public with the matter in order to put more pressure on the company. Among the funds we track, Team Health Holdings LLC (NYSE:TMH) lost some popularity during the second quarter, with the number of funds that owned shares of the company declining by nine to 22, while in aggregate they held 13.50% of the company’s stock at the end of June. Among them, Alan Fournier‘s Pennant Capital Management held the largest stake, containing 3.20 million shares. Moreover, two quant funds, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group and D. E. Shaw boosted their stakes by 90% and 133% to 501,208 shares and 464,451 shares respectively.

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