Former Republican presidential candidate and biotechnology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has purchased a minority stake in Buzzfeed, the digital publisher that shuttered its media outlet last year.
The company’s shares soared more than 50% before the market opened on Wednesday.
Ramaswamy acquired a 7.7% stake in Buzzfeed, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
Ramaswamy said in the filing that he believes Buzzfeed shares are undervalued. He wants to speak to the company’s board and management.
Buzzfeed has struggled to boost sales since going public in 2021. In late 2022, job cuts began to occur with the company citing a poor digital advertising environment, and early last year it announced it was closing its Pulitzer Prize-winning digital media outlet BuzzFeed. News.
The corporate parent’s co-founder and CEO, Jonah Peretti, said in a memo to employees at the time that in addition to the news division, layoffs would occur across its business, content, technology and administrative teams.
Earlier this month, Buzzfeed reported a first-quarter loss of $35.7 million, or 72 cents per share, on revenue of $44.8 million. Advertising revenues fell 22%, while content revenues fell 19% and the company expects the revenue situation to worsen.
Ramaswamy suspended his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination in January and endorsed former President Donald Trump after finishing a distant fourth in the early Iowa caucuses.
The son of Indian immigrants, Ramaswamy entered politics at the highest level after earning hundreds of millions of dollars at the intersection of hedge funds and pharmaceutical research, a career he charted and built while graduating from Harvard University and then Law School. from Yale.
Shares of New York City-based Buzzfeed Inc. rose 59% to about $4 on Wednesday morning.
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
