Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (PZZA): Hedge Funds Are Snapping Up

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds have jumped into Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA) headfirst. Shellback Capital, led by Doug Gordon, Jon Hilsabeck and Don Jabro, created the biggest position in Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA). Shellback Capital had $2.8 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Michael Platt and William Reeves’s BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. also made a $2 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new PZZA positions are Peter Algert and Kevin Coldiron’s Algert Coldiron Investors, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, and Peter Muller’s PDT Partners.

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA) but similarly valued. These stocks are PRA Health Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:PRAH), Tech Data Corp (NASDAQ:TECD), Compass Minerals International, Inc. (NYSE:CMP), and Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ:ALGT). This group of stocks’ market values are similar to PZZA’s market value.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $213 million. That figure was $131 million in PZZA’s case. PRA Health Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:PRAH) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Compass Minerals International, Inc. (NYSE:CMP) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ:PZZA) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard PRAH might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

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