Updated, 6:42 p.m. |
The billionaire investor Leon Cooperman stocked up on Apple while other prominent hedge fund managers were divided on Walgreen. Ally Financial was a favorite for Daniel S. Loeb, John Paulson and Richard Perry.
On Thursday, some of Wall Street’s most prominent investors offered the world a peek at their portfolios.
Four times a year, the secretive world of big hedge funds is briefly thrust into the spotlight when they are required to report changes to their United States stock holdings. These quarterly updates, known as 13-F filings, offer investors a chance to see which stocks and sectors traders were betting on some 45 days ago when the quarter ended.
In perhaps the most fitting illustration of the backward nature of these filings, Carl C. Icahn disclosed a plan to shake up Gannett, one week after the company announced plans to separate its print and broadcast operations. Mr. Icahn’s fund, Icahn Associates, said it had acquired a 6.6 percent activist stake in Gannett and believed “value could be created by splitting the issuer.”
Omega Advisors, Mr. Cooperman ’s $10.5 billion hedge fund, added a new stake in Apple in the second quarter, buying 1.2 million shares. His fund has owned Apple shares in previous quarters.
Robert Citrone’s $13 billion Discovery Capital Management also built a new stake in Apple, buying 6.5 million shares in the quarter.
David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, meanwhile, trimmed its position in Apple to 9.3 million shares from 13.78 million after adjusting for a 7-for-1 stock split in June. Apple shares gained 20 percent during the quarter, to close at $92.93 on June 30. Apple has been one of Greenlight’s largest stock holdings for the last several quarters.
Tiger Consumer Management, the hedge fund led by Patrick McCormack, took a big 18 million share stake in the online game maker Zynga Inc. But Mr. McCormack’s timing may have been off.
Shares of Zynga fell 27 percent during the quarter, closing at $3.21 on June 30. The stock has continued to tumble since then and is now trading at about $2.85 a share. The company reported disappointing second-quarter earnings on Aug. 8 and also lowered its revenue forecast for the year.
The position in Zynga is a new one for Mr. McCormack, a protégé of the legendary hedge fund investor Julian Robertson, although his fund has owned shares of Zynga before. The firm’s 13-F filing did not disclose when Tiger Consumer bought the shares nor the average price it paid to acquire them.
Hedge fund managers were divided on another social media group: Facebook. Appaloosa Management, the hedge fund led by David Tepper, increased its stake to 3.5 million shares. Meanwhile, Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global Investors halved its stake to about four million shares.
Daniel S. Loeb’s Third Point disclosed the firm’s most recent bold bet: auto lending. It had a 9.5 percent stake in Ally, the former financing unit of General Motors, in the second quarter. While Mr. Loeb informed his investors of the stake in a recent letter, this is the first time it has been disclosed publicly.
Perry Capital, the hedge fund founded by Mr. Perry, also added a position in Ally, buying 14.3 million shares, or a 3 percent stake.
Third Point sold several headline stocks including Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which is locked in a hostile takeover battle for Allergan, the maker of Botox, and Citigroup, which announced a $7 billion settlement with the Justice Department last month. It also sold its stakes in Google and its Chinese equivalent, Baidu, but maintained its position in Sotheby’s, where Mr. Loeb won three seats on the board after a long and bitter fight with management.
Walgreen, the drugstore chain, was the focus of many hedge fund managers. A group of shareholders that included Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners pushed the company to consider a tax inversion — effectively renouncing its United States citizenship — through a deal to take full control of the British pharmacy chain Alliance Boots, in which it held a 45 percent stake. Last week, the company agreed to acquire the rest of Alliance Boots but rejected an inversion.
On Thursday, Jana disclosed it had sold one million shares in Walgreen, reducing its stake to 11.1 million. Third Point bought 700,000 shares, building a new position in Walgreen, while Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office maintained its position.
Traders who bet on Family Dollar were rewarded. Earlier this year, the billionaire activist Mr. Icahn agitated for Family Dollar to sell itself to Dollar General amid a competitive retail landscape. In July, Dollar Tree acquired Family Dollar. In the second quarter, John Paulson’s Paulson & Company placed a bet on Family Dollar, increasing its stake to eight millions shares.
Meanwhile, Third Point and Paulson & Company both raised their stakes in Dollar General to 1.3 percent, while Tiger Consumer and Thomas F. Steyer’s Farallon sold their shares.
Tiger Global Management, the fund founded by Chase Coleman, another protégé of Mr. Robertson, exited from sizeable stock positions it had in Coca-Cola Enterprises and Carter Inc., the children’s clothes manufacturer, in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the firm’s hedge fund added about 2.2 million shares to its existing position in Hertz Global Holdings, the rental car company. Mr. Coleman’s firm also opened a new two million share position in the Exact Sciences Corporation, a company that is developing products for detecting and preventing colorectal cancer.
