Snap surges after Wall Street heavyweights reveal stakes

Snap Inc jumped more than 8 per cent on Monday in its second strongest day since the social media company's initial public offering, boosted by filings showing several institutional investors had owned its shares.

The filings provided the first definitive snapshot of who bought Snap shares when it went public in early March. Its stock had plummeted 23 per cent late on Wednesday after its debut quarterly earnings report disappointed investors.

Coatue Management LLC, Soros Fund Management LLC, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Jana Partners LLC on Monday joined the list of fund managers disclosing stakes in the parent of the popular Snapchat messaging app at the end of March.

Snap's high valuation, lack of profitability and slowing user growth have made it a controversial stock on Wall Street. Its IPO was the hottest technology offering since Facebook's in 2012.

Snap's stock is valued at 44 times the company's expected sales for the next 12 months, according to Thomson Reuters data. By comparison, Facebook trades at 14 times expected sales, and Alphabet is at seven times expected sales.

Tech-oriented hedge fund Coatue took a nearly 21 million share stake in Snap.

Soros Fund Management, run by 86-year-old billionaire George Soros, took a nearly 1.7 million stake in Snap during the first quarter.

Goldman meanwhile took a 1.1 million share stake in the newly public company, and also held put and call options on 1.6 million shares.

Most of the long position was assigned to the company's asset management subsidiary, while the other positions are held by one of its broker-dealer subsidiaries. Goldman was a lead underwriter on the Snap IPO.

Activist hedge fund Jana Partners LLC also took a 5,50,000-share stake in Snap.

Coatue declined to comment, while the other three companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Daniel Loeb's Third Point, Daniel Och's Och-Ziff Capital Management , and world's largest asset manager BlackRock Inc on Friday disclosed Snap holdings at the end of March.

The disclosures to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, in what are known as 13F filings, offer clues on what big investors are selling and buying, but give no indication of their current stakes.

Snap closed up 8.36 per cent on the day at $20.74, higher than its $17 IPO price but down almost 30 per cent from its highest trading price on March 3.