Citron Research, an investment research firm known for finding short opportunities, posted a tweet on Monday that it expects Geo Group Inc GEO to benefit from the United States’ current migration challenges. The stock traded up more than 5% on Monday following Citron’s tweet.
What Is Geo Group? Geo Group is a company that owns and operates private prisons and mental health facilities. Currently, Geo owns more than 90 facilities in the United States and an additional four abroad, according to the company’s latest investor presentation.
The Burry Connection: Michael Burry, who like Citron is known for shorting stocks, is also long Geo. Geo is one of Burry’s largest holdings, in addition to Expedia Group Inc EXPE and Generac Holdings Inc GNRC. Burry bought 200,000 shares of Geo during Q2 2023, bringing his total holdings to around 600,000 shares according to the most recent 13F filings.
What Is SmartLINK: Citron’s investment thesis on Geo is based on the company’s app ‘SmartLINK’ which is used by the U.S. government to track hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States. It costs the government about $5 per day per immigrant to use SmartLINK to track immigrants, significantly cheaper than other measures. The app has grown tremendously throughout the last few years, from less than 6,000 users in 2019 to more than 200,000 today.
The app allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to communicate directly with immigrants and is part of ICE’s "Alternatives to Detention" program.
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