Activist investor Jana built stake in BlackLine Systems in second quarter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Activist investor Jana Partners built a new stake in U.S. enterprise software company BlackLine Systems during the second quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

The hedge fund has not yet said whether it will seek changes at the Los Angeles-headquartered company. Jana owned 1.15 million shares on June 30, the filing shows, equivalent to a near 2% stake.

The 13-F filing, which details what U.S. stocks asset managers owned at the end of a given quarter, also shows that Jana owned 2.7 million shares in cybersecurity company Rapid7, where the hedge fund is pushing for a sale.

Jana built a small stake in Fortrea Holdings, owning 690,000 shares at the end of the quarter, the filing shows.

The firm cut its position in diagnostics company QuidelOrtho, which it had built during the first quarter.

It liquidated its position in pet food company Freshpet where it pushed for changes and reached a settlement a year ago. Since Jana first began engaging with the company roughly two years ago, its stock price generated a return of roughly 300%.

Jana has a 23-year track record of investing and has pushed for changes at companies including Frontier Communications and before that Whole Foods Market, which sold itself to Amazon.com Inc.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Jan Harvey)