Fidelity Investments is feeling indigestion over its holdings in Entercom Communications Corp.
Fidelity, based in Boston, has taken a 10.9 percent stake in the Bala Cynwyd, Pa.-based radio station group whose shares are now trading around a five-year low after a first-quarter earnings miss.
Wall Street has punished the stock, knocking 25 percent off its value from early May, as Entercom CEO David Field has said he does not expect a recovery until later this year.
Fidelity Investment now owns 15 million Entercom shares, or more than the 9.4 million shares held by the founding Field family, according to a recent regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Because of a super-voting class of stock, the Field family, father, Joseph, and son, David, control 28.4 percent of the shareholder vote in the radio giant.
Fidelity spokesman Stephen Austin said the investment company does not comment on "companies or specific holdings."
Entercom did not immediately respond for comment.
The company closed on its $4 billion deal for CBS Radio in late 2017. Field, the chief executive, said the Entercom/CBS Radio stations would make a viable national platform for advertisers, leading to market-share gains and synergies. But the integration of the CBS Radio has been harder than Field anticipated and has required millions of dollar in investments and radio-format changes in multiple big radio markets.
Brian Mackey, a senior research analyst with Adviser Investments in Newtown, Mass., a wealth-management firm that follows Fidelity, said that based on data available to him that several Fidelity value mutual funds _ Fidelity Value Fund, Fidelity Value Discovery and Fidelity Dividend Growth _ has taken positions in Entercom as of March 31.
Mackey said it appeared that multiple Fidelity portfolio managers thought Entercom must have been a good investment. "They don't make a decision as a group but they share a lot of ideas," Mackey said.
Other big holders in Entercom are Scopia Capital Management (9.4 percent), Vanguard (6.7 percent), BlackRock Inc. (6.1 percent) and Barclays PLC (5.3 percent), according to regulatory filings.
