Seth Klarman's Baupost Group Drastically Reduces PDL BioPharma (PDLI) Stake

Seth Klarman's hedge fund firm Baupost Group filed an amended 13G with the SEC regarding their position in PDL BioPharma (PDLI). The new filing shows Baupost has a 2.15% ownership stake in PDLI with 3,000,000 shares.

This is a decrease of almost 81% in their position size since the end of the third quarter. This is obviously a drastic reduction and comes in stark contrast to the buying of PDLI shares they were doing last July.

Baupost made the filing due to trading activity on January 31st, 2012.

Per Google Finance, "PDL BioPharma is engaged in the management of its antibody humanization patents and royalty assets, which consist of its Queen et al. patents and license agreements with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The Company receives royalties based on these license agreements on sales of a number of humanized antibody products marketed and also may receive royalty payments on additional humanized antibody products launched before final patent expiry in December 2014."

Seth Klarman's Baupost Group Adds to PDL BioPharma Stake

Seth Klarman's hedge fund Baupost Group has acquired more shares of PDL BioPharma (PDLI) per a 13G just filed with the SEC.

Due to portfolio activity on July 31st, Baupost has disclosed a 10.53% ownership stake in PDLI with 14,718,814 shares. This marks a 40% increase in their position size as they only owned 10,495,225 shares at the end of the first quarter.

Notorious for holding large cash positions when he doesn't see opportunity, Klarman has used the recent market decline to deploy some of that cash into one of his very few equity positions. Last month, we detailed other activity from the fund as Baupost doubled its Syneron Medical stake.

To see the rest of Baupost's updated equity investments, we'll have a brand new issue of our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter out in a week and a half.

Per Google Finance, PDL BioPharma is "engaged in the management of its antibody humanization patents and royalty assets, which consist of its Queen et al. patents and license agreements with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The Company receives royalties based on these license agreements on sales of a number of humanized antibody products marketed and also may receive royalty payments on additional humanized antibody products launched before final patent expiry in December 2014."