Windward's massive new Groupon stake: Insider trades & hedge funds weekly

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By Davit Kirakosyan

Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest insider trades and institutional investor headlines you may have missed last week: news out of Windward Management and Groupon, and top brass buys at Broadcom, GlobalStar, Energy Transfer , and Penn Entertainment.

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Windward Management discloses 8.9% stake in Groupon

Windward Management disclosed an 8.9% (or 2,777,400 shares) stake in Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN). As of June 30, 2023, the firm had no shares in the company. They estimate the company is worth over $55 per share.

As a result of the disclosure, Groupon shares surged more than 4% on Friday.

Windward also disclosed a letter to Groupon CEO Dusan Senkypl, including the following admonishment:

There have been quite a few mis-steps by prior management and in spite of a legacy bloated cost structure and a company that was mired in a “blasé-faire” culture, the company managed to survive in spite of itself, a testament to the quality of the core business.

Windward also believes that “a series of bad guides under prior management teams who have consistently under-performed and caused the stock to trade into no man’s land."

Windward says it believes that, with new leadership under the control of Pale Fire - an activist investor who possesses a 22% stake in the company - there exist numerous easily attainable opportunities due to artificially depressed compares. They moreover argue that these opportunities have the potential to drive revenue growth toward or beyond 50% of 2019 levels.

Broadcom Director buys nearly $10 million in stock

Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) Director, Check Kian Low, purchased 11,000 common shares, or worth more than $9.5M, at $872.0256. Following the purchase, Low has a total of 15,951 common shares.

Shares fell more than 7% since Aug 31, when the company provided an in-line revenue guidance for the current quarter while reporting better-than-expected Q3 results.

GlobalStar Chairman buys nearly $8M in stock

Globalstar (NYSE:GSAT) Chairman, James Monroe III, purchased 5,080,416 common shares, or worth more than $7.7M, at an average price of $1.52 per share.

Shares seem to have been purchased from Director James Lynch through crossing transactions involving Thermo Funding II (Monroe) and Thermo Investments II LLC (Lynch). The sale was said related to tax planning purposes for Lynch.

Two more insider purchases

Energy Transfer (NYSE:ET) co-CEO, Marshall McCrea III, purchased 50,000 common shares, or worth nearly $700,000, at $13.79.

PENN Entertainment (NASDAQ:PENN) EVP/CFO, Felicia Hendrix, purchased 11,162 common shares, or worth more than $250,000, at $22.41.