In another 13D filing, Mark Rachesky’s MHR Fund Management reported owning 30.27 million shares of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (USA) (NYSE:LGF), which make up 20.1% of the company’s outstanding shares. This compares with the 40.21 million-share position revealed in MHR’s 13F for the September quarter. The entertainment company is had a terrible start of the year, as its shares have plunged almost 40% year-to-date. Earlier this month, the company released its financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2016 that ended December 31, which partly explains the disappointing stock performance. Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (USA) (NYSE:LGF)’s segment revenues for the nine months that ended December 31 reached $1.56 billion, down from $1.75 billion reported for the same period of the prior year. It is particularly interesting that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2 ranked among the highest-grossing films of 2015, but its box office performance declined from Mockingjay 1, weighting on the company’s financial performance. After the release of the company’s earnings report, several analysts cut their price targets on the stock. Nonetheless, the stock appears to be slightly undervalued at the moment if solely relying on certain valuation metrics. Lions Gate’s stock is trading at a forward P/E of 10.72, which compares with the industry average ratio of 14.0. Barry Rosenstein of JANA Partners owns 7.18 million shares of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (USA) (NYSE:LGF) as of September 30.
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As revealed by a newly-amended Form 4 filing, Abrams Capital Management owns 10.36 million shares of Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:BKS), after the acquisition of some 1.69 million shares in three transactions at an average price of $8.00 per unit. This compares with the stake of 6.92 million shares held on September 30. The shares of the retail bookseller are down 5% so far in 2016, partly owning to rumors that Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) might have been planning to open hundreds of physical bookstores in the US. However, Amazon’s plans to open bookstores were just a rumor, and the shares of Barnes & Noble recouped the majority of losses caused by the emergence of this rumor. In the meantime, the company’s B&N Retail segment has seen decreasing sales in the past several years due to changing customer preferences, resulting in lower comparable store sales, lower online sales and store closures. Nonetheless, the company has managed to benefit from the reviving growth of the digital book market. There were 23 hedge funds tracked by our team with positions in the struggling bookseller at the end of the July-to-September period, which stockpiled slightly more than 24% of the company’s total shares. Edward A. Mule’s Silver Point Capital was bullish on Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:BKS) at the end of September, holding 2.56 million shares.
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