Starboard Value liquidated its entire Salesforce position—worth approximately $850 million at year-end—and exited Autodesk during the first quarter, according to a 13F filing disclosed Friday. The activist fund simultaneously opened new stakes in CarMax and Lamb Weston, signaling a tactical rotation from high-multiple software to operational-turnaround plays in retail and consumer staples.
The Salesforce exit closes a position Starboard built beginning in Q3 2022, when shares traded near $155. The fund disclosed ownership of roughly 3.1 million shares in its prior filing. Salesforce closed Q1 at $274, implying Starboard harvested a 76% gain before the stock's recent compression. The Autodesk exit follows a similar pattern: Starboard entered in early 2023, pressured management on margin expansion, and left after shares climbed from $195 to $265. Both moves conform to Starboard's stated discipline of exiting positions within 18 to 24 months once operational targets are met or momentum stalls.
The new CarMax position matters because it marks Starboard's first meaningful auto-retail exposure since the fund's 2019 Darden campaign. CarMax trades at 0.4x sales and 9x forward earnings, depressed by elevated wholesale inventory costs and a 22% year-over-year decline in used-vehicle unit sales. Starboard's entry price likely averaged near $68, below the stock's $82 five-year median multiple. The Lamb Weston stake is more opaque but fits the fund's pattern of targeting mid-cap industrials with margin headroom. Lamb Weston's EBITDA margins compressed 340 basis points year-over-year to 21.7% as potato costs spiked and restaurant traffic softened. The stock trades at 11.2x EBITDA, a 15% discount to its three-year average.
Allocators tracking activist capital flows should note that Starboard's software exits predate recent compression in cloud-infrastructure multiples but align with a broader hedge-fund rotation out of growth-duration exposure. Salesforce's forward revenue multiple contracted from 6.2x in January to 5.4x by March 31, and Autodesk's multiple fell from 12.1x to 10.8x over the same window. Starboard's pivot into CarMax and Lamb Weston suggests the fund is hunting margin-expansion narratives in sectors where input-cost normalization and operational leverage are clearer than in software, where revenue growth is decelerating and margin gains are priced in.
Watch for Starboard to file Schedule 13Ds on CarMax or Lamb Weston within 60 days if either position exceeds 5% of shares outstanding. CarMax's $10.2 billion market cap implies a 5% stake would require roughly $510 million, well within Starboard's deployment capacity given the Salesforce liquidation. Lamb Weston's $9.8 billion cap sets a similar threshold. Also monitor upcoming earnings calls: CarMax reports Q1 results on June 20, and Lamb Weston's fiscal Q4 is scheduled for July 17. Any Starboard board-representation demands or margin-improvement proposals would likely surface in proxy filings between now and early September.
Starboard's 13F now shows 18 positions totaling approximately $3.2 billion in disclosed long equity, down from 21 positions and $3.6 billion at year-end. The concentration increase—top five holdings now represent 62% of the book versus 54% prior—indicates the fund is tightening conviction as it rotates capital from realized gains into new campaigns.