Private hedge fund company Jana Partners has revealed that it recently acquired 2 percent stake in Blue Apron Holdings Inc (NYSE:APRN).
Jana revealed its investment in the food-kit maker in a regulatory filing on Monday. The actual purchase deal took place on June 30 and it involved the purchase of 600,000 shares for a total of $5.6 million. The news of the stock purchase was revealed in Jana’s 13-F filing. The latter is a filing carried out by investment managers with regards to their holdings. Other than the announcement about the filing, both firms have remained quiet about the transaction. It is not clear whether Jana is still holding on to the stake or whether it unloaded the shares within the six since the purchase.
Neither of the two organizations has responded to further inquiries about the stake. However, it is clear that the announcement caused a significant impact on the stock performance. Blue Apron’s stock surged by as much as 5 percent after Jana revealed that it acquired a stake in the food-kit maker. This is great news for investors considering that the stock lost almost half its value after going public on June 29.
Jana also announced at the end of Q2 that it still holds roughly 23.3 million shares of Whole Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM). The private hedge fund encouraged Whole Foods to seek an acquisition and it ended up striking a deal with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). Jana ended up making $300 million from that deal. Its stake in Blue Apron made investors optimistic about the future of the food-kit maker. This is evident by the positive performance of the stock following the announcement.
“Jana disclosed a stake in Whole Foods in April, immediately pushing the organic grocery chain to consider a sale. In mid-June, Whole Foods obliged, agreeing to sell itself to Amazon for $13.4 billion,” wrote CNBC in a post.
Jana’s stake in Blue Apron has declined by about 43 percent assuming that it did not sell before the stock tumbled in June. However, things are looking positive and hopefully, a stock turnaround will place Jana back in a winning position with its stake in Blue Apron.
Blue Apron stock closed the latest trading session on Tuesday at 5.65.