A firm that specializes in initial-public-offering research made some major moves in the fourth quarter, including exiting two high-profile investments.
Renaissance Capital LLC sold all its holdings in short-term rental firm
Airbnb
and cloud-software firm
Palantir
Technologies, and bought more shares of trading app
Robinhood
Markets and electric-vehicle maker
Rivian Automotive
in the quarter. Renaissance disclosed the stock trades, among others, in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Matt Kennedy, a senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, said in an email, “We sold Airbnb and Palantir in our fourth-quarter rebalance, because by that point they had been publicly traded for more than three years. The
Renaissance IPO
exchange-traded fund is designed to hold unseasoned equities not found in many core portfolios.”
The Renaissance IPO ETF, incidentally, had a boffo year in 2023, gaining 53% compared with the 24% rise in the
S&P 500 index.
Kennedy noted that Airbnb originally went public in December 2020, and was added to the S&P 500 in September 2023, giving the company a wider investment base as funds and ETFs tracking the index bought shares.
Airbnb stock ended 2023 a winner with a 59% gain. Palantir stock did even better, rocketing 167% last year. So far in 2024, shares of Airbnb and Palantir were up 1% and down 2.4%, respectively. Renaissance had owned 133,109 Airbnb shares and 948,588 Palantir shares as of Sept. 30, and owned none by the end of December.
“As for Robinhood and Rivian,” Kennedy continued, “like other ETFs that are weighted by market cap, we’ll typically purchase more shares of an existing holding due to improved stock performance in the quarter leading up to the rebalance, or a higher tradable float.”
In the third quarter, Robinhood stock slipped about 2%, while Rivian surged 46%. Robinhood shares ended 2023 with a 57% gain, powered by a December crypto rally. Rivian shares gained 27% in the year. So far in 2024, shares of Robinhood and Rivian sport respective losses of 14% and 23%.
Renaissance bought 93,707 more Robinhood shares in the fourth quarter to lift its holdings to 429,386 shares, and bought 87,975 Rivian shares to end 2023 with 423,549 shares.
Inside Scoop is a regular Barron’s feature covering stock transactions by corporate executives and board members—so-called insiders—as well as large shareholders, politicians, and other prominent figures. Due to their insider status, these investors are required to disclose stock trades with the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory groups.
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected] and follow @BarronsEdLin.
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