Baupost Group Starts Bellatrix Exploration Stake, Adds to SunEdison, Reduces Syneron Medical

Seth Klarman's hedge fund firm Baupost Group has filed three 13G's with the SEC.


New Position in Bellatrix Exploration

First, Baupost Group has disclosed a new equity position in Bellatrix Exploration (BXE) and they now own 11.38% of the company with over 21.8 million shares.  The filing was made due to activity on January 31st.

Per Google Finance, Bellatrix Exploration is "a Canada-based company engaged in exploration and production of oil and gas. The Company is focusing on developing its two core resource plays, the Cardium and the Notikewin/Falher intervals. The Cardium is into accumulation of light oil in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin with approximately 20,000 square miles and 1.38 Billion barrels produced to date. Notikewin/Falher is located in a regional stacked Upper Mannville Channel. The main type of reservoir is incised channel fill sandstones cutting finer-grained non-marine deposits."


Increases SunEdison Semiconductor Position

Second, Seth Klarman's firm has increased its position in SunEdison Semiconductor (SEMI).  They now own 19.03% of the company with over 7.89 million shares.  This is an increase of over 3.75 million shares since the end of the third quarter and the filing was due to activity on January 31st.

Per Google Finance, SunEdison Semi "is engaged in the development, manufacture and sale of silicon wafers to the semiconductor industry. The Company’s products include polished, epitaxial (EPI), silicon on insulator (SOI), perfect silicon and magic denuded zone (MDZ) wafers ranging in diameter from 100 millimeter (mm) to 300 mm. The Company sells its products to semiconductor manufacturers, including integrated device manufacturers and pure-play semiconductor foundries, and to a lesser extent, companies that specialize in wafer customization."


Decreases Syneron Medical Exposure

Third, Baupost has disclosed a 3.07% ownership stake in Syneron Medical (ELOS) with over 1.12 million shares.  This is a decrease of over 1.86 million shares from their previous stake at the end of the third quarter.  The filing was required due to portfolio moves on January 31st.

Per Google Finance, Syneron Medical "designs, develops and markets aesthetic medical products based on its various technologies including its Electro-Optical Synergy (ELOS), technology, which uses the synergy between electrical energy, including radiofrequency (RF) energy, and optical energy to provide aesthetic medical treatments. The Company’s products, which it sells primarily to physicians and other practitioners, target a range of non-invasive aesthetic medical procedures, including hair removal, wrinkle reduction, rejuvenation of the skin’s appearance through the treatment of superficial benign vascular and pigmented lesions, acne treatment, treatment of leg veins, treatment for the temporary reduction in the appearance of cellulite and thigh circumference and laser-assisted lipolysis."

You can view additional recent portfolio activity from Baupost Group here.

Seth Klarman's Baupost Group Doubles Syneron Medical (ELOS) Stake

Seth Klarman's Baupost Group recently filed an amended 13G with the SEC regarding shares of Syneron Medical (ELOS). Per portfolio activity on June 30th, Baupost Group has disclosed a 11.06% ownership stake in ELOS with 3,836,071 shares.

This marks a 155% increase in their position size as they only owned 1,500,000 shares back on March 31st. So while Baupost added to this position significantly, keep in mind that it's still a relatively small equity position for them. Not to mention, Baupost has under 10% of its assets under management allocated long US equities.

In other disclosures from the hedge fund, we saw that Baupost trimmed its Audiovox stake (VOXX) and we also detailed their position in Gabriel Resources (TSE:GBU) as well.

Per Google Finance, Syneron Medical "designs, develops and markets aesthetic medical products based on its various technologies including its Electro-Optical Synergy (ELOS), technology, which uses the synergy between electrical energy, including radiofrequency (RF) energy, and optical energy to provide aesthetic medical treatments. The Company’s products, which it sells primarily to physicians and other practitioners, target a range of non-invasive aesthetic medical procedures, including hair removal, wrinkle reduction, rejuvenation of the skin’s appearance through the treatment of superficial benign vascular and pigmented lesions, acne treatment treatment of leg veins and treatment for the temporary reduction in the appearance of cellulite."

Seth Klarman's Baupost Group Sells More Syneron Medical (ELOS)

In an amended 13G just filed with the SEC, Seth Klarman's hedge fund Baupost Group has disclosed a 5.45% ownership stake in Syneron Medical (ELOS). The filing was made due to activity on November 30th, 2009 and they now hold 1,500,000 shares. This is a decrease from their prior holdings. As we detailed when we covered Baupost's portfolio, they've been selling shares of Syneron for a while now (even prior to September 30th). Back then, they owned 2,096,235 shares which means they have sold 596,235 shares (a 28% decrease) in the past two and a half months.

In terms of other recent activity out of hedge fund Baupost, we saw in November that they had started a new stake in Enzon Pharmaceuticals. For more on Baupost's portfolio, head to our post on Seth Klarman's holdings to see what else they are investing in.

We track Baupost Group for their 20% annual compounded return, long-term focus, and thorough investing methodology focused on value investing principles. They are one of the few hedge funds we have included in our Market Folly custom portfolio that is seeing 25.5% annualized returns. (Head over to Alphaclone to see the hedge fund portfolio replication in action). And if you want to learn how to invest like Seth Klarman, then we'd highly recommend picking up his hard to find book, Margin of Safety. In it, he lays out the premise for risk averse value investing.

For more resources of Klarman and Baupost, check out the following:

- Klarman's interview from the annual Graham & Dodd breakfast
- Thoughts from Seth Klarman
- And another interview with Seth Klarman

Taken from Google Finance, Syneron Medical "develops and markets medical products based on its various technologies including its Electro-Optical Synergy (ELOS) technology, which uses the synergy between electrical energy, including radiofrequency (RF) energy, and optical energy. The Company’s products focus on an array of non-invasive medical procedures."