Glenview Capital Management, a fund managed by Larry Robbins, has recently raised its exposure to PHH Corporation (NYSE:PHH). As a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed, Glenview owns a passive stake that contains 3.86 million shares of the company, up from 2.86 million shares held earlier. The position amasses 7.59% of PHH Corporation’s common stock.
Glenview Capital is a hedge fund with an equity portfolio worth around $19.1 billion as of the end of September. Mr. Robbins, a former trader at Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors is a notorious figure on the street since Glenview managed to post impressive gains that beat average hedge funds and the S&P 500 over the last decade. At the end of October, Mr. Robbins attended the Robin Hood Conference in New York, where he pitched two stocks, Community Health Systems (NYSE:CYH) and VCA Inc (NASDAQ:WOOF). A couple of days later, Glenview reported raising its position in VCA to 12.8 million shares, representing around 15% of the company, but the stock went up by 25% since Mr. Robbins discussed it at the conference. Also at the end of October, Mr. Robbins spoke at the Sohn Canada conference where he recommended long positions in Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR), Endo International plc – Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:ENDP), and Actavis plc (NYSE:ACT). A couple of weeks after that, Actavis agreed to buy Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN), which had a positive impact on the stock price.
PHH Corporation (NYSE:PHH) has been in Glenview’s equity portfolio since the fourth quarter of 2013 and the stock inched down by 1% over the last year. The stock represents an $1.1 billion market cap financial company that is specialized in providing outsource services for mortgage and fleet management segments. The stock has lost ground because of the decline in revenues and net income. For the third quarter, PHH’s revenue fell to $152 million from $211 million a year ago, but its net income went up to $215 million, from a loss of $52 million, on the back of gains from the sale of some discontinued operations.
Nevertheless, even though, the stock inched down, investors seem to keep their optimism regarding the future prospects of PHH Corporation (NYSE:PHH). Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group has been raising its exposure to the stock this year. In June it more than doubled its holding and in July further raised the position to 5.51 million shares, equal to 9.6% of the company’s common stock. However, by the end of the third quarter Citadel has trimmed its position and reported holding 3.67 million shares.
In this way, with Glenview bullish on PHH Corporation (NYSE:PHH), should you follow its move? Despite the fact that Glenview and Citadel are bullish on the stock, the positions represent less than 1% in both funds’ equity portfolios. In addition, a broader look at the data shows that out of more than 700 funds that we track at Insider Monkey, 23 held long positions in the company at the end of September, down from 29 funds at the end of the previous quarter. In addition, the stock has a ‘Hold’ consensus rating, although its target price stands at around $25 per share.
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