Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners placed two new bets on defense and aerospace stocks in the second quarter, according to a 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission . The activist hedge fund more than doubled its position in Mercury Systems , the filing showed, adding 120% to a stake that stood at $152 million on June 30. Mercury designs, develops, and manufactures computer hardware and software products for the aerospace and defense industries. Among Jana’s other notable moves in the second quarter were buying a new position in Leidos Holdings , worth $29 million. Leidos contracts with all branches of the U.S. military, the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The fund’s largest position at the end of the quarter remained Freshpet , valued at some $282 million. Jana boosted its Freshpet holding by 6.9%, or more than 275,000 shares, in the quarter. Jana’s other increases in the second quarter included an addition of almost 2% to home health services stock Enhabit and a more than 6% expansion in the size of its holding in financial firm Fidelity National Information Services . Jana lowered its holding in LabCorp by nearly 40%, or $55 million, bringing it to roughly $97 million by quarter’s end. The fund entirely exited a $4 million position in geospatial intelligence stock BlackSky Technology . Jana Partners managed about $1.3 billion in 13F securities at the end of the second-quarter, according to WhaleWisdom.com .
Jana Partners loaded up on little known defense stocks in second quarter
