Disney and Expedia stakes, Catalent sales: Trending Stocks
Activist investment firm ValueAct Capital has taken up undisclosed stakes in Expedia Group (EXPE) and Disney (DIS), the latter of which is already facing a proxy battle from Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management.
Catalent (CTLT) shares rise on promising sales figures for its preliminary first fiscal quarter.
Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton examine several stocks following Wednesday's closing bell.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Video Transcript
JOSH LIPTON: Shares of Expedia higher. This after ValueAct Capital reportedly accumulating a stake in the company, that's according to Reuters. ValueAct saying Expedia is now set to benefit from smarter pricing. So ValueAct here, again, this is per Reuters, taking undisclosed stakes in Expedia and Recruit. And ValueAct apparently saying the two companies were set to benefit from smarter pricing, better cost management, and smarter modernization it looks like of the services used to run the websites.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, but ValueAct is busy.
JOSH LIPTON: Very, yeah.
JULIE HYMAN: Apparently, reportedly, they are also investing in Walt Disney. And, of course, this is not the first activist that has gotten involved in Disney this year. Nelson Peltz is trying.
Capital Management has really been the most prominent visible involvement and that company has been pushing for some board representation, et cetera throughout the course of the year. But it does reflect-- you know, it's interesting about the travel companies. To me Disney is a bit more interesting because--
JOSH LIPTON: For sure, yeah.
JULIE HYMAN: --it reflects the dissatisfaction that some investors have had with the company's performance.
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah, Bob Iger is back, right? He's at the helm and he has been making moves. I mean, he's cutting costs, cutting jobs. But he now-- he has his hands full.
I mean the stock has not done a whole lot, right? He's got his well-known challenges with linear TV. As you said, he's already dealing with Nelson Peltz and his firm over at Trian. They've reportedly recently upped their own stake. They're seeking board seats.
Now on top of that, he's got ValueAct to deal with very well-known activist investors engaged in campaigns of other companies, Salesforce, for example. So a lot on Iger's plate, but he's a veteran. He's, of course, well, used to this.
JULIE HYMAN: Yes, of course. So we'll see what happens. And we also got to talk about Catalent, that's one of the best performers in the S&P 500 today. It reported better than expected preliminary sales for the first fiscal quarter.
Baird calling the company's results reassuring after low expectations. By the way, in case you're wondering what Catalent does, this is a company that helps bring drugs, life sciences products to market. So it's sort of-- and you know, it gets that stuff done on the part of pharmaceutical companies.
JOSH LIPTON: Yeah, just looking through the, you know, commentary from analysts on the street, Baird, they're neutral. They're a meh. They've got a price target for it.
It doesn't sound like so impressed. They said really the results, kind of, just exceeded what they would call low expectations. They also say, you know, you've got bulls like the crew over at Stevens. They've got an overweight target at 55. They say, listen, end of the day, this was a clean top and bottom line beat.
JULIE HYMAN: By the way, Catalent, one of the many, many, many companies that is in the so-called GLP averse. I'm just going to call it that, right? This new class of obesity drugs that have gained such prominence and that's because they help, again, bring some of these products to market. So they talked about that there is demand from that, but it didn't sound like that there is runaway confidence or optimism into what the fruits of those kinds of drugs are going to bring to cattle. So just something to watch though--
JOSH LIPTON: For sure.
JULIE HYMAN: --within that space.
