market folly

In an amended 13G filing with the SEC, Barry Rosenstein's hedge fund Jana Partners LLC has disclosed a 9.7% ownership stake in Coleman Cable (CCIX) with 1,664,729 shares. They have been selling shares of CCIX recently and have filed 2 separate Form 4's with the SEC detailing those sales. Firstly, on June 19th, they sold 72,374 shares with the bulk of the sale coming at $2.90 per share. Then, on June 25th & 26th, Jana sold 515,000 shares at prices pretty much evenly split at $2.83 and then $2.94. Simply put, they've been reducing their position. In their last 13F filing (which shows positions as of March 31st, 2009), Jana held over 2.3 million shares of CCIX. Now, they hold less than 1.7 million.

In addition to their sales of CCIX, we've also noted Jana recently selling shares of Convergys (CVG). Additionally, they've also filed a 13D on Immucor (BLUD). 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. It appears as though they've survived but we'll still monitor any further transactions.. We'll also 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.

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, Coleman Cable is "a designer, developer, manufacturer and supplier of electrical wire and cable products for consumer, commercial and industrial applications, with operations primarily in the United States, and to a lesser degree, in Canada. It produces products across four primary product lines: industrial wire and cable, including portable cord, machine tool wiring and other power cord products."