Trian Fund Management disclosed on Thursday that it boosted its position in Sysco Corp., the industrial food supplier. The New York activist firm headed by Nelson Peltz said it bought nearly 700,000 shares, raising its stake to 7.8 percent. It paid slightly less than $49 a pop for each of the shares. At the end of the first quarter, Sysco was Trian’s second largest among nine disclosed individual U.S. holdings. Shares of Sysco are up nearly 20 percent this year. This helps to explain why Trian Partners gained more than 2 percent last month and is up nearly 4 percent for the year.
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Hedge fund firms Viking Global Investors and Senator Investment Group are among the investors who participated in the $100 million Series C round of funding for Ginkgo Bioworks, which describes itself as an organism design company. (The company uses DNA to build organisms to specification for customers in the food, health, and consumer goods.) Back in July, Viking led a $45 million Series B round of financing that was oversubscribed. In a press release, Ginkgo said it plans to use the proceeds to help fuel growth into new markets, such as commodity chemicals, industrial enzymes and human health markets, as well as to build its next-generation automated foundry, Bioworks2.
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One fledgling Tiger Grandcub took a beating Thursday, when shares of Restoration Hardware plummeted more than 21 percent following a very disappointing earnings report and guidance information. SRS Investment Management, founded by Tiger Global Management alum Karthik Ramakrishna Sarma, was the seventh-largest shareholder of the upscale hardware and home furnishings retailer at the end of the first quarter.
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Valeant Pharmaceuticals International enjoyed its first profitable day in the past six trading days, surging more than 6 percent, to close at $25.55.
