According to a freshly-amended 13D filing, MSD Capital Management LLC, co-founded by Glenn Fuhrman and John Phelan, currently owns 727,356 shares of DineEquity Inc. (NYSE:DIN), which represent 3.9% of the company’s total outstanding shares. This denotes a decrease of 1.00 million shares from the stake disclosed in MSD’s 13F filing for the December quarter. The restaurant operator has seen its shares advance by nearly 10% since the beginning of 2016, after releasing a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings report, which may have prompted MSD to cash out of some of its holdings.
DineEquity Inc. (NYSE:DIN) owns and franchises the Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar and the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) brands. The company posted total revenue of $681.1 million for 2015, an increase from the $655.0 million in sales that it achieved in 2014. At the same time, its net income reached $104.9 million in 2015, a big jump over the $36.5 million in income that it reported for 2014. It should be noted that the restaurant operator has sold the majority of its company-owned restaurants to franchisees, a strategy aimed at generating steady revenue streams without being affected by shifts in consumer spending. The company’s management anticipates Applebee’s domestic same-restaurant sales to grow in the range of negative 2% to positive 2% in 2016, while IHOP’s domestic same-restaurant sales are anticipated to grow in the range of 1% to 4%.The shares of DineEquity trade at a forward P/E multiple of 13.88, substantially below the ratio of 24.10 for the Restaurants industry. There were 13 hedge funds in our database invested in the company at the end of December, amassing 12.50% of the company’s shares. Joel Greenblatt’s Gotham Asset Management trimmed its stake in DineEquity Inc. (NYSE:DIN) by 15% during the October-to-December period, to 147,552 shares.
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In a Schedule 13G, Iridian Asset Management LLC, founded by David Cohen and Harold Levy, disclosed a new stake of 7.22 million shares in GCP Applied Technologies Inc. (NYSE:GCP), which constitute 10.2% of the company’s outstanding common stock. On February 3, 2016, GCP completed its separation from Columbia-based W. R. Grace & Co (NYSE:GRA) and announced its launch as a new publicly-traded company. In February 2015, W. R. Grace announced its plans to separate into two independent, publicly-traded companies, in an attempt to improve its strategic focus and simplify its operating structure. The newly-emerged company operates Grace’s Construction Products operating segment and its packaging technologies business. The separation was completed by means of a pro rata distribution to Grace shareholders of all shares of GCP. GCP Applied Technologies Inc. (NYSE:GCP)’s shares have advanced by 6% since the beginning of February, when they began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “GCP”. Analysts at Goldman and Jefferies recently initiated coverage on the stock with ‘Neutral’ and “Buy’ ratings, respectively. Iridian Asset Management owned 5.96 million shares of W. R. Grace & Co (NYSE:GRA) at the end of December 2015. According to a separate 13G filing, Adage Capital Management, founded by Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, owns 4.05 million shares of GCP Applied Technologies Inc. (NYSE:GCP).
