NBCUniversal Sold Buzzfeed Stock after Vivek Ramaswamy Purchase
NBCUniversal cashed in on Vivek Ramaswamy’s activist play on BuzzFeed.
The entertainment giant sold more than $10 million worth of shares in BuzzFeed Wednesday (3,176,923 shares at an average price of $3.1936, to be exact, worth about $10.1 million), taking advantage of a brief surge in the company’s stock price.
BuzzFeed stock soared Wednesday after the entrepreneur and former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy disclosed that he had taken a 7.7 percent activist stake in the company, and would seek strategic changes.
This is not the first time that NBCU has taken opportunistic advantage of a stock price surge in BuzzFeed. A year ago it sold 5.7 million shares in the company after it announced a pivot to artificial intelligence and announced deals with OpenAI and Meta.
it is also worth noting that NBCU is also likely to lose the vast majority of its initial investment in BuzzFeed, despite the opportunistic sales. The company poured $200 million into the company in 2015, and another $200 million into it in 2016, valuing the company at $1.7 billion.
Even with the stock surge this week, BuzzFeed’s market cap is under $100 million.
According to an SEC filing, the company still holds some 2 million shares in the Jonah Peretti-led digital media firm.
