Mario Gabelli Is Betting On Micro-Caps Tecumseh And Sevcon

Mario Gabelli filed, on Tuesday, two Schedule 13D forms with the SEC, disclosing increased stakes in two micro-cap companies: Sevcon Inc SEV andTecumseh Products Company TECU. So, let’s take a look at these moves and the companies involved in order to elucidate if they stand as attractive investment options.

Tecumseh Products Company

Tecumseh Products Company is a $92.07 million market cap industrials manufacturer. According to the latest filing, the funds affiliated with Mr. Gabelli (GAMCO, Gabelli Funds and GSI) boosted their exposure to the company by 7.8 percent.

The firms may be deemed beneficial ownership of 2,637,268 shares (up from a previous 2,445,468), representing 14.21 percent of the total shares outstanding.

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Only one institutional investor holds a larger stake in Tecumseh: Aegis Financial Corp. According to its latest 13F filing, the firm owns 3,056,098 shares of the company. Another major hedge fund betting on the micro-cap is Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates, which last disclosed ownership of more than 8.7 percent of the company, or 1,609,965 shares.

Sevcon

Sevcon, an electronic controls company with a market cap of under $30 million, is actually a nano-cap. In this case, the increase in Mr. Gabelli’s exposure reached 38.3 percent.

According to the filing, Mr. Gabelli and the funds affiliated with him (the aforementioned ones, plus Teton Advisors) now own 2,195,872 shares of Common Stock, or 48.75 percent of the company’s outstanding stock.

As one might figure, this position makes of Mr. Gabelli the largest institutional investor in Sevcon, trailed, from far behind by Wells Fargo & Co., which last declared holding 230,938 shares, and Dimensional Fund Advisors, which owns 108,224 shares of Sevcon and 1,232,891 shares of Tecumseh.