ValueAct Capital Builds Seagate Stake, Sells More MSCI

Per a Seagate Technology (STX) press release, Jeff Ubben's ValueAct Capital has become one of the company's largest shareholders.  They now own 9.5 million STX shares, up from the 3 million shares they owned at the end of the second quarter.

ValueAct participated in a secondary transaction and has also been invited to join as an observer on Seagate's board.

Partner Mason Morfit said that, "Seagate has a strong storage technology portfolio and is well positioned to benefit from attractive long-term secular trends.  We are excited about the opportunity to work with the Seagate team, at both the Board and management level, to help increase long-term value for all shareholders."

The brand new issue of our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter recently analyzed Seagate's main competitor, Western Digital.

Per Google Finance, Seagate is "a provider of electronic data storage technology and solutions. The Company's principal products are hard disk drives (HDDs). In addition to HDDs, it produces a range of electronic data storage products, including solid state hybrid drives, solid state drives, peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) cards and serial advanced technology architecture (SATA) controllers. Its storage technology portfolio also includes storage subsystems and high performance computing solutions. Its products are designed for applications in enterprise servers and storage systems, client compute applications and client non-compute applications. It designs, fabricates and assembles various components found in its disk drives, including read/write heads and recording media. Its design and manufacturing operations are based on technology platforms that are used to produce various disk drive products that serve multiple data storage applications and markets."


ValueAct Sells More MSCI

Also, per a Form 4 filed with the SEC,  ValueAct has sold some more shares of MSCI (MSCI).  They sold 450,000 shares in total on September 6th-8th at prices of $88.4, $88.5, and $87.6.

After these transactions, Jeff Ubben's firm now only owns 850,900 shares of MSCI.

Per Google Finance, MSCI "offers content, applications and services to support the needs of institutional investors throughout their investment processes. The Company's operating segment includes Index, Analytics and All Other segment. All Other segment comprises ESG and Real Estate segments. The Index operating segment is a provider of investment decision support tools, including equity indexes and equity index benchmarks. The Analytics operating segment consists of products and services used for portfolio construction, risk management and reporting. The ESG operating segment offers products institutional investors use for assessing risks and opportunities arising from environmental, social and governance issues. ESG tools are used to evaluate both individual securities and investment portfolios. The Real Estate operating segment is a provider of real estate performance analysis for funds, investors, managers, lenders and occupiers."

ValueAct Capital Sells More MSCI

Jeff Ubben's activist investment firm ValueAct Capital has filed a Form 4 with the SEC regarding its position in MSCI (MSCI).  Per the filing, ValueAct sold 1.8 million shares on June 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at prices of $78.96, $78.69, and $76.21.

As we've highlighted previously, ValueAct has been trimming its MSCI stake throughout the year.

After these transactions, ValueAct now owns 1.87 million shares.

Per Google Finance, MSCI "together with its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a provider of investment decision support tools, including indexes, portfolio risk and performance analytics and multi-asset class market risk analytics products and services. The Company’s products include global equity indexes and environmental, social and governance (ESG) products marketed under the MSCI and MSCI ESG Research brands, its private real estate benchmarks marketed under the IPD brand, its portfolio risk and performance analytics covering global equity markets marketed under the Barra brand, its multi-asset class, market and credit risk analytics marketed under the RiskMetrics and Barra brands and its performance reporting products and services offered to the investment consultant community marketed under the InvestorForce brand."  

ValueAct Capital Trims MSCI Stake Again

Jeff Ubben's investment firm ValueAct Capital has filed a Form 4 with the SEC regarding their stake in MSCI (MSCI).  Per the filing, they sold 91,800 shares at a price of $74.93 on May 5th.  After the sale, they still own over 3.67 million shares.

We posted about how ValueAct sold some MSCI back in March as well, as they previously owned over 6 million shares.

For more from this firm, check out Jeff Ubben's recent interview.

Per Google Finance, MSCI "together with its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a provider of investment decision support tools, including indexes, portfolio risk and performance analytics and multi-asset class market risk analytics products and services. The Company’s products include global equity indexes and environmental, social and governance (ESG) products marketed under the MSCI and MSCI ESG Research brands, its private real estate benchmarks marketed under the IPD brand, its portfolio risk and performance analytics covering global equity markets marketed under the Barra brand, its multi-asset class, market and credit risk analytics marketed under the RiskMetrics and Barra brands and its performance reporting products and services offered to the investment consultant community marketed under the InvestorForce brand." 

ValueAct Capital Reduces MSCI & Motorola Solutions Stakes

Jeff Ubben's activist investment firm ValueAct Capital has filed numerous disclosures with the SEC regarding some of their positions recently.


ValueAct Trims MSCI Stake

First, they've filed an amended 13D with the SEC regarding shares of MSCI (MSCI).  ValueAct now owns 4.1% of the company with over 4.06 million shares.

This is down from the 6.32 million shares they owned at the end of 2015.  They sold shares at the end of February and beginning of March at prices between $69.25 and $71.96.

Per Google Finance, MSCI "together with its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a provider of investment decision support tools, including indexes, portfolio risk and performance analytics and multi-asset class market risk analytics products and services. The Company’s products include global equity indexes and environmental, social and governance (ESG) products marketed under the MSCI and MSCI ESG Research brands, its private real estate benchmarks marketed under the IPD brand, its portfolio risk and performance analytics covering global equity markets marketed under the Barra brand, its multi-asset class, market and credit risk analytics marketed under the RiskMetrics and Barra brands and its performance reporting products and services offered to the investment consultant community marketed under the InvestorForce brand."


Ubben Reduces Motorola Solutions Position

Second, ValueAct has also filed a Form 4 with the SEC regarding their stake in Motorola Solutions (MSI).  They sold over 6.6 million shares at prices of $70 and $74.14 on March 1st and February 29th.  After these sales, they now own 10.96 million shares of MSI, or 6.3% of the company.

Per Google Finance, Motorola Solutions "provides communication infrastructure, devices, accessories, software and services. The Company operates business in two segments: Products and Services. The Products segment offers a portfolio of infrastructure, devices, accessories and software. The primary customers of the Products segment are Government, public safety and first-responder agencies, municipalities, and commercial and industrial customers. The Products segment has two principal product lines: devices and systems. The Services segment provides a set of service offerings for Government, public safety and commercial communication networks. The Services segment has the following principal product lines: Integration services, Lifecycle Support services, Managed services, Smart Public Safety Solutions and Integrated Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN) services. The Company serves customers in more than 100 countries."

ValueAct Capital Trims MSCI Stake

Jeff Ubben's activist investment firm ValueAct Capital has filed a Form 4 and 13D with the SEC regarding their stake in MSCI (MSCI).  Per the Form 4, ValueAct sold 255,000 shares on November 5th at $68.83, another 762,000 shares on November 6th at $68.11, and another 815,000 shares on November 9th at $66.45.

After these sales, ValueAct still owns over 7.47 million shares of MSCI, or 7.3% of the company.  The firm's 13D filing also noted this about their sale:

"(ValueAct has) sold the securities of the Issuer reported in Item 5 herein as part of their standard ongoing process of portfolio management.  D. Robert Hale, a partner of ValueAct Holdings and ValueAct Holdings GP, will continue to serve on the board of directors of the Issuer and currently intends to stand for reelection at the Issuer's 2016 annual meeting."

We've posted previous portfolio activity from ValueAct Capital here.


Per Google Finance, MSCI is "together with its wholly owned subsidiaries, is a provider of investment decision support tools, including indexes, portfolio risk and performance analytics and multi-asset class market risk analytics products and services. The Company’s products include global equity indexes and environmental, social and governance (ESG) products marketed under the MSCI and MSCI ESG Research brands, its private real estate benchmarks marketed under the IPD brand, its portfolio risk and performance analytics covering global equity markets marketed under the Barra brand, its multi-asset class, market and credit risk analytics marketed under the RiskMetrics and Barra brands and its performance reporting products and services offered to the investment consultant community marketed under the InvestorForce brand."

What We're Reading ~ Hedge Fund Links 1/9/14

Love him or hate him, Bill Ackman now runs the top hedge fund [Bloomberg]

Meet the most powerful woman in hedge funds [CNBC]

ValueAct takes swipe at MSCI [FT]

Jeff Gundlach: I just hope the Fed thinks carefully about what it's doing [FUW]

Kyle Bass going after big pharma [Business Insider]

3G Capital eyes next targets [WSJ]

Mohnish Pabrai: I have no original ideas, I am a 100% cloner [Rakesh Jhunjhunwala]

Permanent capital: perpetual cash machines [FT]

Top hedge fund trends for 2015 [FINalternatives]

Tiger Global funds Glassdoor [Glassdoor]

Is something a 'failure' if other successes come from it? [Eddie Lampert]

Tom Brown on Ocwen's abominable deal with New York regulators [Bank Stocks]

Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital Buys More MSCI

Eric Mindich's hedge fund Eton Park Capital just filed a 13G with the SEC on its position in MSCI Inc (MSCI ). Per portfolio trading on July 29th, Eton Park has disclosed a 5.81% ownership stake in with 7,000,000 shares.

This activity represents a 18.6% increase in the hedge fund's position size because at the end of the first quarter, they owned 5,900,000 shares. Per data from the first quarter, Eton Park is now the fourth largest shareholder of MSCI shares.

MSCI is very visible in markets as popular indexes (and exchange traded funds) bear its name, such as the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Index (EEM).

Of other funds we track, Stephen Mandel's hedge fund Lone Pine Capital had previously owned MSCI back in 2009 but sold it in 2010. Thomas Steyer's Farallon Capital held a sizable position at the end of Q1, but we won't know their recent Q2 position size until next week.

In other activity from Eton Park, we detailed their new position in 3Leg Resources.

Per Google Finance, MSCI Inc is "a provider of investment decision support tools, including indices, portfolio risk and performance analytics and corporate governance products and services. The Company consists of two segments: the Performance and Risk business and the Governance business."