Gabelli dials back on Gaylord

Between sales and dilution, stake of longtime shareholder drops two points

Email | Print By Geert De Lombaerde

Mario Gabelli

GAMCO Investors, the holding company for the investment interests of value guru Mario Gabelli, has sold a small part of its holdings in Gaylord Entertainment, the hotel operator it took on during a short proxy fight this past spring.

New York-based GAMCO, which manages almost $19 billion for its clients, sold about 90,000 shares of Gaylord (Ticker: GET) during the spring and summer. In the six months covered by Gabelli’s filings, Gaylord shares more than tripled versus a 56 percent gain for the S&P 500 Index.

GAMCO’s stake shrank during the second and third quarters due also to Gaylord’s sale of more than six million shares in September, an offering that was part of a broader $485 million capital raise. After reaching 13.3 percent in March, GAMCO’s stake now stands at 11.4 percent.

What’s not yet clear is what has happened to the stake of TRT Holdings, the vehicle Texas billionaire Robert Rowling used to launch his own proxy fight against Gaylord this year.

Days after both GAMCO and TRT settled their differences with Gaylord in March – with each netting two board seats and a higher poison pill threshold – Rowling raised his stake in the company to more than 15.6 percent. If TRT didn’t buy or sell any Gaylord during the following six months, its stake would have been diluted to about 13.6 percent as of early this month.