Columbia Wanger (Trades, Portfolio) Asset Management was founded in 1992 in Chicago. The firm primarily provides its services to investment companies, as well as pension and profit sharing plans. The firm primarily invests in small-cap and mid-cap holdings. Columbia Wanger (Trades, Portfolio) currently employs 80 employees and the company owns 175 stocks with a total value of $9.984 billion.
In the first quarter of 2015, Columbia Wanger (Trades, Portfolio) sold out 3,567,748 shares of Fresh Market Inc. (TFM, Financial).
Fresh Market opened their first store in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1982. The company has since expanded to 168 stores in 27 states across the U.S. Fresh Market focuses on providing fresh meats, seafood, fruits and vegetables. The company likes to present the European style of shopping by playing classical music with warm lighting in an attempt to provide an elegant experience for those shopping at its stores.
Fresh Market has a market cap of $1.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.84, an enterprise value of $1.31 billion, a P/B ratio of 3.66 and a quick ratio of 0.62.
Fresh Market has one good sign according to GuruFocus. The company’s Piotroski F-Score has a rating of 7, which indicates a very healthy financial situation. The company also has a very strong financial strength rating of 9/10 according to GuruFocus, with a cash to debt ratio of 1.89, ranking them above 67% of the companies in the industry.
According to the company's most recent 10-K form, the biggest risk factor is the competition within the industry.
It is possible that Columbia Wanger (Trades, Portfolio) decided to sell out its shares of Fresh Market because of the fierce competition it faces from other large companies within the industry. Fresh Market must compete with other large successful companies such as Publix, Trader Joe’s, Costco (COST, Financial), Walmart (WMT, Financial), Fareway Stores, as well as Amazon (AMZN, Financial) in the future. Columbia Wanger may have decided that the variance is too high to hold their position in Fresh Market due to the vast competition within the industry.
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