As we continue to track hedge funds’ 13D and 13G filings, I came across two interesting transactions. On Tuesday, Mark Broach’s Manatuck Hill Partners disclosed a 52.9% increase in its exposure to Good Times Restaurants Inc. (NASDAQ:GTIM), while Joe Huber’s Huber Capital Management declared a 20.5% reduction in its stake in A M Castle and Co (NYSE:CAS). Let’s take a closer look at these moves:
Huber Capital Management is the largest hedge fund shareholder of record –amongst those we track- at A M Castle and Co. By the end of the second quarter of 2014, the fund acknowledged ownership of 1.92 million shares, worth more than $21 million, of the $226 million market cap specialty metals & plastics distribution company. However, according to its last Schedule 13D filing, Huber sold more than 390,000 shares since late-July (for prices ranging from $8.76 per share to $11.24 per share), and now holds 1.52 million shares of the company’s Common Stock.
This position accounts for 6.5% of A M Castle and Co’s outstanding Common Stock, and still makes it the largest hedge fund shareholder in the company. Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates seems more bullish about the company, since it last declared a 107% increase in its bet; by June 30, the fund owned 1.47 million shares of Common Stock.
Good Times Restaurants Inc. is a $37.2 million market cap developer, owner, operator and franchisor of hamburger-oriented drive-through restaurants under the names Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard. Also on September 16, Manatuck Hill Partners disclosed a transaction from early-August: the fund added 166,300 shares of Common Stock to its holdings, which now amount to 480,300 shares. This wage, worth almost $2.5 million, accounts for 6.4% of the company’s shares outstanding.
Mark Broach’s Manatuck Hill Partners is the only hedge fund (amongst those we keep track of) that has invested in Good Times Restaurants Inc.. The company recently reported a 12% in same-store sales for August 2014. In 2013, growth had reached 18.7% for this month, representing a two-year increase of 30.7%. The management said that September will be the last month for which it will report monthly same-store sales results; instead, it plans to continue to report them quarterly.
Manatuck is a corporate spin off of the troubled Pequot Capital Management founded in 2009 by the team that managed the small-cap Pequot Scout Fund. It last disclosed an equity portfolio worth more than half a billion dollars, mainly focused on consumer discretionary stocks, which account for 46.6% of its total equity portfolio.
