Gabelli Acquires More Kenexa Shares

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Oct 09, 2012
Billionaire Guru and GAMCO Investors founder, chairman and CEO, Mario Gabelli has increased his shares of Kenexa Corporation (KNXA) by more than 95,000 shares, reported 10/04/2012, on GuruFocus Real Time Picks.

At $45.97 per share, the purchase amounted to a $4.3 million investment, boosting his ownership of Kenexa to 6%, a total of 925,885 shares.

Kenexa is a global provider of business, human resources and talent acquisition solutions. Some of the company’s newest business solutions lineup, announced yesterday, include Rapid Hire, a new module and mobile user interface designed to hire managers in high-volume industries, Kenexa’s Mobile Feedback App, which provides employers real-time employee feedback, and CompAnalyst, a web-based tool that offers recommendations on compensation aligned with a company’s business strategies.

Kenexa maintains a 50.5 P/E ratio, a 4.5 P/S ratio, a Financial Strength rank of 6 out of 10 and a Profitability and Growth of 4 out of 10. GuruFocus gives the company one Severe Warning Sign indicating a low Piotroski F-Score, and three Medium Warning signs, with its stock price close to a 10-year high, and both its P/B and P/S ratios close to 3-year highs.

On Oct. 6, The Rosen Law Firm announced an investigation of Kenexa’s board of directors for possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law, all pertaining to Kenexa’s sale to IBM Corporation (IBM) in August.

As an information technology company, IBM bought out Kenexa for a net price of about $1.3 billion at $46 per share. Kenexa would complement IBM’s social business and HR business services, supporting IBM’s study that revealed a growing need to increase workforce efficiencies and business insights, according to an IBM press release.

Under IBM’s proposal terms, the Rosen Law Firm wishes to seek answers to whether the price of $46 per Kenexa share is fair to public shareholders, and whether the board’s decision broke its contract fiduciary duties by deciding on the offer.

With a market price of $208.12 per share, IBM has a market cap of $240.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.8, a P/S ratio of 2.3, a Financial Strength rank of 7 out of 10 and a Profitability and Growth rank of 9 out of 10.

Aside from Gabelli, who also owns more than 57,000 IBM shares, other Gurus who are IBM shareholders include Warren Buffet (BRK.A, Financial)(BRK.B, Financial) at 66 million shares and Bruce & Co.’s Robert Bruce at more than 56,000 shares.

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