Five Stocks that Helped Starboard Value’s Equity Portfolio Return 6.5% in Q1

Let’s move on to another company against which Starboard Value LP launched an activist campaign soon after initiating a stake and whose shares are performing well this year. Insperity Inc (NYSE:NSP) became a part of Starboard’s portfolio during the last quarter of 2014 and in the following quarter the fund increased its stake in the company by 194% to 3.33 million shares. From the end of first quarter of 2015 till March 15 this year, the fund has continued to own the same number of shares of the company. In January, 2015, Mr. Smith wrote a letter to the company’s Board and its CEO in which he outlined a broad plan for the company to improve its performance and also suggested that it should look out for a suitor. Although Insperity Inc (NYSE:NSP) didn’t agree with everything that Mr. Smith stated, the parties reached an agreement in March, 2015, and appointed three of his nominees to the Board. On March 15, Starboard nominated John Morphy and Michael F. Shea as director candidates for election to the company’s Board of Directors at its 2016 annual shareholders meeting and added that the company ” has made progress over the past year, but that [Insperity] remains undervalued and that additional opportunities remain to improve the Issuer’s operations and corporate governance”. Insperity Inc (NYSE:NSP)’s stock gained 8% during the first quarter, but is yet to break above the $52 mark.

Finally, let’s take a look at Starboard Value’s most-discussed holding, Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). At the end of 2015, Starboard owned 7.1 million shares of the company worth $236.27 million. The fund has been constantly suggesting new ideas and future courses of action to Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s Board since it initiated a stake during the third quarter of 2014. In March, Starboard  launched a proxy fight against Yahoo! by nominating nine director candidates to replace all of the current Board members of the company. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO)’s stock has seen a consistent uptrend since it reached a 52-week low of $26.15 in February and owing largely to that ended the first quarter up by over 10%. On April 8, the company extended the deadline for other companies to bid for its core businesses by a week, to April 18. In a note released the same day, SunTrust’s tech analyst Robert Peck wrote: “Yahoo’s core can be sold for $6-8B, which is accretive to shareholders (even after taxes) given its negligible public value today.” Billionaire David E. Shaw‘s  D.E. Shaw reduced its stake in the company by 26% to 8.12 million shares during the fourth quarter.

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