News Corp (NWSA): Pzena Investment Management Ups Exposure to 6.97% of Class A Stock

Since Mr. Pzena was bullish on the stock throughout the last year, with the latest increase, Pzena Investment Management strenghtened its position as one of the largest shareholders of News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA). Another shareholder that was betting on the company is Charles De Vaulx‘s International Value Advisers, which raised its stake by 344% during the third quarter to 19.05 million class A shares. On the other hand, some of the other investors are not so fond of the company. Earlier in November, Mason Hawkins‘ Southeastern Asset Management cut almost its entire holding in News Corp class B stock to 187,000 shares from 25.36 million shares held earlier. In addition, Southeastern owns some 15.52 million class A shares of the company.

Moreover, recently, News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) has seen some insider trading activity. In December, James Murdoch disposed of a total of 710,860 shares of News Corp’s class A common stock. The director of the company sold 613,425 shares at $15.64 per unit and transfered to a charity an additional 97,435 shares. Following these transactions, Murdoch does not own any class A shares of the company and holds around 411 class B shares.

Analysts, so far, have a consensus ‘Hold’ rating for News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA)’s class A stock, while the average price target amounts to around $18.00, which is significantly above the current price of the stock. However, yesterday FBR Capital Markets upgraded the class A stock of News Corp to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ and reiterated their target price of $18.50. Moreover, the largest target price for the stock among the recent analyst updates was set in November by Jefferies Group, which decreased it to $21.00 from $22.00 with a ‘Buy’ rating.

Disclosure: none