Savvy Investors Have Opened a New Position in This Bank Stock

A longtime activist bank investor and a hedge fund that invests primarily in banks both opened new positions in Kearny Financial (NASDAQ: KRNY) in the third quarter. Lawrence Seidman purchased more than 631,342 shares worth nearly $4.6 million. Meanwhile, FJ Capital Management purchased 248,000 shares worth nearly $1.8 million. Let's take a look at what these two savvy bank investors might be seeing in this stock.

Kearny Financial, which is based in Fairfield, New Jersey, has $7.3 billion in assets. It has a market capitalization of more than $900 million as of this writing, and it had been a mutual savings bank before going public.

There are a few potential routes to value creation for Kearney. Neither Seidman nor FJ Capital Management has taken an activist position, meaning they would own more than 5% of outstanding shares. So, they could simply be long on the stock. Both Seidman and FJ Capital Management purchased shares for a weighted average cost of about $7.21 per share. That means they purchased shares when they were trading at a significant discount of just 69% to tangible book value.

Source Fool.com