Barry Rosenstein seems to think he’s found bargains in the Internet company aisle.
His hedge fund, Jana Partners, disclosed big new stakes in the online commerce company Groupon and the game maker Zynga on Wednesday, as part of a quarterly 13F securities filing.
The firm reported owning 21.9 million shares in Groupon, giving it a 3.3 percent stake, and 25.5 million shares in Zynga, for a 4.3 percent stake. Those holdings make Jana one of the top six shareholders for both companies.
Though both Internet companies have struggled since their high-flying initial public offerings, their stocks have rebounded healthily this year. Groupon’s shares were up nearly 42 percent through Tuesday, while Zynga had risen 41 percent.
It’s unclear what Jana has in mind or whether the activist hedge fund intends to try and shake things up at the two companies. Jana has taken on the likes of McGraw-Hill and CNet.
But the hedge fund’s ability to agitate for change in the onetime investor darlings may be limited. Both Groupon and Zynga have multiple classes of stock, effectively giving public shareholders a much smaller voice in running the company. Groupon’s three founders control the company’s Class B shares, which have 150 votes apiece compared with Class A shares’ single vote.
Zynga has an even more complicated triple-class structure. While Class A shares have one vote each, Class B shares have seven and Class C shares have 70 apiece. Mark Pincus, the company’s founder and chief executive, effectively controls the game maker with 59 percent of its voting power as of Dec. 31.
