Thursday, June 02, 2011

Stock | Ariel trims GCI stake in first quarter

Chicago-based money manager Ariel Investments sold 2.1% of its Gannett stock during the first quarter, the Motley Fool investing site says. Still, GCI remains No. 1 among Ariel's 116 holdings, valued at $5.7 billion.

GCI stock recently traded for $14.01 a share, up 17 cents, or 1.2%.

Ariel was GCI's No. 3 investor at the end of the quarter, with 14.3 million shares, MSN Money Central says.

JP Morgan Chase was No. 1, with 22.6 million shares. Alliance Bernstein was No. 2, with 16.8 million.

Motley didn't say when Ariel sold its stock, or give any other details. During the quarter, shares traded from $14.26 to $18.93.

8 comments:

  1. I believe Ariel is out of Minneapolis. Or did they move? No matter, I guess. The accuracy habit is just hard to shake if you've been a reporter.

    At any rate, this may partly explain the price drop in the first quarter.

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  2. 10:33: Not Minneapolis. From their contact us page, looks like you can get to them either in Milwaukee or Chicago.

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  3. Morningstar doesn't rate Ariel currently among the top performing funds. I wonder if they use outside consultants to make these decisions, or s***can their lower level analysts to get performance up.

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  4. 1. Gannett cannot afford their big balloon payment due this year. Bankers are sniffing all around this place looking for assets to sell off immediately.

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  5. 11:32 Geez, we need to launch another USA Today vertical ASAP. That will bring in the sort of revenues the banks need to see.

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  6. 12:05 Betcha there are more marketing people who could be easily diverted to oversee this task.

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  7. Ariel cut its stake because there are insufficient powerful, dynamic people in key management positions. Maybe next quarter!

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  8. Re: My Boss at 11:32 a.m.: Jim, can you refresh our memories about GCI's balloon payment?

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