The same investor who was the largest shareholder in Rawlings Corporation prior to its recent sale, has announced a 5.23% ownership in Huffy Corporation according to a 13D filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday morning. Daniel Gilbert and Camelot Ventures, a private investment group, now own 768,900 shares of the common stock.
As one of the largest shareholders of Huffy, the group will “explore opportunities to enhance the value” of the sporting goods manufacturer, according to the filing. Huffy specializes in manufacturing bicycles, basketball backboards and other sporting goods.
“Huffy is somewhat similar to Rawlings in that they have a good brand and an attractive portfolio of products, but are undervalued by the market in a consolidating industry,” said Gilbert.
The filing also stated that the investment group “may encourage Huffy to explore strategic alternatives to increase shareholder value and, depending on Huffy’s response, may consider pursuing such alternatives on their own with or without third parties.”
In December of last year, Gilbert made an all cash offer to acquire Rawlings. The company was ultimately acquired by K2 Inc. in an all stock transaction.
As for Huffy management, they simply issued a release later in the day that said, “We are always pleased when investors take a significant position in Huffy Corporation stock based on their stated perception that the stock is undervalued. At this point, although we have spoken briefly with Mr. Gilbert, we have no additional information beyond that contained in the press release of this morning and think it would be inappropriate to speculate on any future developments”.
