4 hot insider trades & hedge fund hits: Cathie Wood writes down Twitter stake

By Davit Kirakosyan

Investing.com -- Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest insider trades and institutional investor headlines you may have missed last week: Elliott acquires significant stake at Catalent, Constellation Brands gains on agreement with Elliott, Cathie Wood's ARK writes down Twitter stake, and Asana sees another CEO buy.

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Catalent stock rises after WSJ reveals activist investor Elliott holds a significant stake

Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) rose nearly 3% on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported that Elliott Investment Management, an activist investor, acquired a significant stake in the pharmaceutical company.

According to the report, Elliott is also in talks with potential director candidates about running in a proxy contest. The company's window for director nominations closes on July 29.

Elliott's drive for changes comes at a time when Catalent's CFO departed in April while the company struggled with operational issues that significantly impacted its stock price several months ago.

Constellation Brands shares gain on announced agreement with Elliott

Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ) shares surged more than 5% on Wednesday following the company's announced Information Sharing and Cooperation Agreements with Elliott Investment Management L.P., one of Constellation's largest investors. According to the agreements, Elliott has agreed to a standstill, voting, confidentiality, and other provisions.

Furthermore, the company announced the election of Luca Zaramella, CFO of Mondelēz International (NASDAQ:MDLZ), and William T. Giles, former CFO of AutoZone (NYSE:AZO), to its Board of Directors.

Cathie Wood's ARK writes down Twitter stake

ARK Investment Management, led by Cathie Wood, has written down its ownership in Elon Musk's Twitter by 47%, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Wood, who supported the privatization of Twitter by the billionaire and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Musk last year, emphasized that the write-down was not reflective of their long-term positive outlook on the investment.

Recently, Musk tweeted about Twitter's ongoing challenges, including negative cash flow, a significant 50% decrease in advertising revenue, and a substantial burden of debt.

Wood believes that Meta's launch of the Twitter-rival Threads will foster healthy competition and eventually lead to Twitter evolving into an 'everything app'.

Asana CEO buys more shares

Asana (NYSE:ASAN) CEO Dustin Moskovitz purchased another 80,000 common shares, worth about $1.9 million, as reported in real-time on InvestingPro.

Following the purchase Moskovitz holds 40,312,803 common shares directly and 4,147,046 indirectly through a trust he controls.

This purchase is part of a disclosed plan in March 2023, outlining his intention to purchase up to 30M shares before the end of 2023.

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