Jeff Smith’s Starboard Reports New Position; Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Updates Two Investments

Activist investors are always in the spotlight and their filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission are always scrutinized, with the stocks that are targeted by activists usually registering significant appreciation. Therefore, in this article, we are going to take a look at the latest moves reported by two notable activist funds: Jeff Smith‘s Starboard Value and Bill Ackman‘s Pershing Square. 

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A recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that Starboard Value has initiated a massive position in Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX). The investor has acquired 4.10 million shares of the company, which represent 7.10% of its outstanding stock. According to the filing, Starboard has economic exposure to some 4.33 million shares of Infoblox, which represent 7.5% of its outstanding stock due to holding some cash-settled total return swap agreements. Shares of Infoblox have opened around 5% in the green on the back of the news.

Starboard said it currently doesn’t have any proposals regarding the company, although we can expect more news soon. The investor has been building a significant stake in Depomed Inc (NASDAQ:DEPO), which amounts to 5.64 million shares (9.2% of its outstanding stock) and has announced plans to propose candidates to the company’s board of directors. Jeff Smith is scheduled to give a presentation at the 2016 Ira Sohn Conference on May 4 (see more details).

Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX) is a $946 million IT services company that provides Domain Name System (DNS) security, network control and automation. The stock is down by more than 12% since the beginning of the year. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2015, a total of 27 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in Infoblox Inc (NYSE:BLOX), up by 13% from one quarter earlier. Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital held the largest stake, which contained 5.06 million shares worth close to $93 million, followed by Dorsal Capital Management, led by Ryan Frick and Oliver Evans, with a $52.4 million position containing 2.85 million shares. Other professional money managers that were bullish consist of Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group, Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

Head on to the next page, where we are going to discuss two moves that have been recently disclosed by Pershing Square.