market folly

Jeff Ubben's activist investment firm ValueAct Capital has filed numerous disclosures with the SEC regarding some of their positions recently.


ValueAct Trims MSCI Stake

First, they've filed an amended 13D with the SEC regarding shares of MSCI (MSCI).  ValueAct now owns 4.1% of the company with over 4.06 million shares.

This is down from the 6.32 million shares they owned at the end of 2015.  They sold shares at the end of February and beginning of March at prices between $69.25 and $71.96.

Per Google Finance, MSCI "together with its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a provider of investment decision support tools, including indexes, portfolio risk and performance analytics and multi-asset class market risk analytics products and services. The Company’s products include global equity indexes and environmental, social and governance (ESG) products marketed under the MSCI and MSCI ESG Research brands, its private real estate benchmarks marketed under the IPD brand, its portfolio risk and performance analytics covering global equity markets marketed under the Barra brand, its multi-asset class, market and credit risk analytics marketed under the RiskMetrics and Barra brands and its performance reporting products and services offered to the investment consultant community marketed under the InvestorForce brand."


Ubben Reduces Motorola Solutions Position

Second, ValueAct has also filed a Form 4 with the SEC regarding their stake in Motorola Solutions (MSI).  They sold over 6.6 million shares at prices of $70 and $74.14 on March 1st and February 29th.  After these sales, they now own 10.96 million shares of MSI, or 6.3% of the company.

Per Google Finance, Motorola Solutions "provides communication infrastructure, devices, accessories, software and services. The Company operates business in two segments: Products and Services. The Products segment offers a portfolio of infrastructure, devices, accessories and software. The primary customers of the Products segment are Government, public safety and first-responder agencies, municipalities, and commercial and industrial customers. The Products segment has two principal product lines: devices and systems. The Services segment provides a set of service offerings for Government, public safety and commercial communication networks. The Services segment has the following principal product lines: Integration services, Lifecycle Support services, Managed services, Smart Public Safety Solutions and Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) services. The Company serves customers in more than 100 countries."