Activist investor Elliott Investment Management has taken a 9% stake in Pinterest Inc (NYSE:PINS), making it the social media platform’s biggest investor.
The firm wrote to Pinterest this month to inform the company that it is now its largest shareholder, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Previously Vanguard Group held the largest institutional stake in the company, a shareholding of nearly 8%.
Pinterest's former chief executive and co-founder Benjamin Silbermann, who stepped down from the helm in late June to stay on as an executive chair, was another of its largest shareholders.
The social media platform appointed former Google executive Bill Ready to replace Silbermann, who quickly assumed the role at the end of that month.
He previously served as president of commerce at Google, where he was responsible for driving its next billion users, and was chief operating officer at payment platform PayPal beforehand.
Pinterest’s share price has fallen by nearly 45% in the past six months, as the platform's monthly global users fell 6% to 431mln in 2021.
Its share price spiked 15% after hours late on Thursday, before falling back down to pre-closing levels.
In the company’s next phase, it seeks to translate monthly users into purchasers who will buy products based on their pin collections and topic searches.
As Silbermann stepped back from the CEO role, the co-founder's parting words were: “In our next chapter, we are focused on helping Pinners buy, try and act on all the great ideas they see.”