Snap's biggest investors raise stakes in third quarter

By Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fidelity Investments and technology-focused hedge fund Coatue Management LLC boosted their stakes in social media company Snap Inc during the third quarter, despite Snap's disappointing results, regulatory filings showed on Tuesday.

Companies controlled by Fidelity held 11 million more Snap shares than during the prior quarter, while Coatue increased its stake by 1.7 million shares. Fidelity is the company's sixth-largest shareholder, while Coatue is the seventh largest, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Coatue and Snap declined to comment. Fidelity did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Venice, California-based maker of messaging app Snapchat debuted on the stock market in a March public offering that was the hottest of any tech stock in years.

 

But its earnings reports have underwhelmed Wall Street, including results earlier this month that showed revenue and user growth for the third quarter well below expectations, as it struggles to compete with Facebook Inc's Instagram. [nL3N1ND65C]

Snap shares sank 18 percent in the third quarter and another 14 percent since the end of September. On Tuesday afternoon, the stock was marginally up on the day.

Other significant shareholders include OppenheimerFunds Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co , and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC , according to Thomson Reuters data based on filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

U.S.-based fund managers disclose their stock holdings quarterly to the regulatory agency in what is known as a 13F filing. Other investors pore over those filings for clues about what savvy traders are doing.

But relying on the filings to develop an investment strategy comes with some risk because the disclosures are incomplete, backward looking and come out 45 days after the end of each quarter.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Additional reporting by David Ingram in San Francisco, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)