market folly

In a recent 13G filed with the SEC, hedge fund Jana Partners has disclosed a 5.5% ownership stake in Immucor (BLUD). They now own 3,865,413 shares and this is a brand new position for them, as they previously did not hold it as of March 31st, 2009 (per their last 13F filing). So, after all this time, Jana appears to be alive and well and buying stocks. This all comes after Barry Rosenstein's hedge fund had a rough 2008 and apparently received redemption requests for a significant amount of their capital (20-30%). They were forced to set aside illiquid positions in an attempt to meet all the requests. But, it appears as if they have survived. We'll be checking in on the rest of their portfolio in our hedge fund portfolio tracking series after skipping them last go-round due to the uncertainty swirling around the fund.

In the past, we had covered some of Jana's other SEC filings as well as their activist stake in Convergys. Jana was founded in 2001 by Barry Rosenstein and typically employs activist, market neutral, and long/short equity strategies in public equity markets. Rosenstein received his BS from Lehigh University and his MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Jana has returned 20.9% each year annualized from 2001 til 2007. Rosenstein sees Jana's future in a strategy that uses management adjustments to force change at companies, which in turn can send shares higher. And, hopefully that strategy changes things for the better, as 2008 was a rough year for them.

Taken from Google Finance,

Immucor "develops, manufactures and sells a complete line of reagents and automated systems used primarily by hospitals, clinical laboratories and blood banks in a number of tests performed to detect and identify certain properties of the cell and serum components of human blood prior to blood transfusion."