Gordon Haskett speculates activist may be ‘spreading its bets’ on Genuine Parts

Gordon Haskett’s head of event-driven research Don Bilson notes that Goldman Sachs, UBS and Barclays all made 13F filings that showed “meaningful” Genuine Parts (GPC) positions, telling investors “when we see activity like this where three prime brokers are the top buyers in a quarter, it often means that an activist is spreading its bets around.” The firm said that “if this is what has happened at GPC, we’re talking about a 5% position in a $17bn company that saw its stock get blasted October,” adding that CEO Will Stengel will be celebrating his one-year anniversary in the post on June 3 and “it’s now TBD whether he’ll be spending his second year dealing with an activist.”