What We're Reading ~ 3/21/18

Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life [Nassim Taleb]

Tech's next big wave: big data meets biology [Fortune]

Looking at the Wyndham spinoff [Clark Street Value]

Comcast and the curse of diversified holdings companies [Yet Another Value Blog]

An IPO valuation of Spotify [Aswath Damodaran]

The death of many brands: the rise & risks of concierge brands [Intrinsic Investing]

Billionaire raises his bet on containerships [WSJ]

How Amazon became corporate America's nightmare [Bloomberg]

The 10 best and worst performing stocks since the financial crisis [Zen Investor]

Lone Pine Capital Adds to Wyndham Stake

Steve Mandel's hedge fund firm Lone Pine Capital has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding their position in Wyndham Worldwide (WYN).  Per the filing, Lone Pine now owns 5.2% of WYN with over 6.77 million shares.

The filing indicates they've purchased over 1.06 million shares since the end of the third quarter and the 13G was filed due to portfolio activity on January 2nd, 2014.

Per Google Finance, Wyndham Worldwide is "a hospitality company. The Company offers individual consumers and business customers an array of hospitality services and products across various accommodation alternatives and price ranges through its portfolio of brands. It operates in three segments of the hospitality industry: lodging, vacation exchange and rentals and vacation ownership. Its brands include Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Tryp by Wyndham, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Landal GreenParks, Novasol, Hoseasons, cottages4you, James Villa Holidays, ResortQuest by Wyndham Vacation Rentals, The Resort Company by Wyndham Vacation Rentals, Wyndham Vacation Resorts and WorldMark by Wyndham."

For more portfolio activity from Lone Pine, click here.

Steve Mandel's Lone Pine Capital Buys Netease.com & Wyndham Worldwide

Steve Mandel's hedge fund firm Lone Pine Capital just filed two separate 13G's with the SEC regarding shares of Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) and Netease.com (NTES). The hedge fund previously owned stakes in both, but has been adding to its positions in each as of late.


Netease.com (NTES)

Lone Pine's biggest buy between the two was NTES as they ramped their position size up by 3511% since the end of Q2. Mandel's firm now shows a 5.5% ownership stake in NTES with 177,328,000 shares (based on direct ownership of 7,093,120 ADR's) due to portfolio activity on October 26th.

Per Google Finance, Netease.com is "is a Internet technology company. NetEase provides online game services to Internet users through the in-house development or licensing of massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs), including Fantasy Westward Journey, Westward Journey Online II, Westward Journey Online III, Tianxia II and Datang, as well as the licensed game, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft.."


Wyndham Worldwide (WYN)

Lone Pine boosted its holdings in WYN by 22% since the end of the second quarter. The hedge fund now shows a 5.4% ownership stake in Wyndham worldwide with 8,259,034 shares due to trading on October 26th.

From Google Finance, Wyndham is " a hospitality company. The Company offers individual consumers and business customers a range of hospitality services and products across various accommodation alternatives and price ranges through its brand portfolio. Its operations are grouped into three segments: lodging, vacation exchange and rentals and vacation ownership. It has more than 20 brands, which include Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Howard Johnson, Wyndham Rewards, Wingate by Wyndham, Microtel, RCI, The Registry Collection, ResortQuest, Landal GreenParks, Novasol, Hoseasons, cottages4you, James Villa Holidays, Wyndham Vacation Resorts and WorldMark by Wyndham."

We've also covered some of Lone Pine's other portfolio activity here.

David Gallo's Valinor Management Adds Heavily to Goldman Sachs, Iconix Positions: 13F Filing

(This post is part of our series on tracking hedge fund portfolios. If you're unfamiliar with tracking investments they disclose via SEC filings, check out our series preface on hedge fund 13F filings.)

Next up is David Gallo's Valinor Management. Gallo founded Valinor after previously working at Roberto Mignone's Bridger Management. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and the hedge fund is named after lands often inhabited by immortal souls from the books of J.R.R. Tolkien. We just started covering Valinor's portfolio, and in the past have detailed their recent position adjustments.

The positions listed below were Valinor's long equity, note, and options holdings as of December 31st, 2009 as filed with the SEC. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted.


Brand New Positions
Check Point Software (CHKP)
Education Management (EDMC)
Cardinal Health (CAH)
Amedisys (AMED) Puts
PHH (PHH)
Bank of America preferreds (BAC-S)
Schweitzer mauduit (SWM)
Graphic Packaging (GPK)
Lear (LEA)
Boston Scientific (BSX)


Increased Positions
Goldman Sachs (GS): Increased by 457.4%
Gymboree (GYMB): Increased by 304.3%
Iconix (ICON): Increased by 132.7%
Popular (BPOP): Increased by 82.4%
Qualcomm (QCOM): Increased by 78.6%
Regions Financial (RF): Increased by 72.3%
Bank of America (BAC): Increased by 68.2%
Assurant (AIZ)): Increased by 44.8%
Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (DPS): Increased by 42.3%
Morgan Stanley (MS): Increased by 38.2%
Yahoo (YHOO): Increased by 33.8%
LM Ericsson (ERIC): Increased by 28.7%
Jarden (JAH): Increased by 19.4%
Covanta (CVA): Increased by 19.1%


Reduced Positions
DSW (DSW): Reduced position by 33.6%
Monsanto (MON): Reduced position by 21.5%


Removed Positions (Sold out completely):
People United Financial (PBCT)
Allegheny Energy (AYE)
International Speedway (ISCA)
Ecolab (ECL)
Hertz Global (HTZ)
Exterran (EXH)
Royal Caribbean (RCL)
Allergan (AGN)
United Community Banks (UCBI)
Eclipsys (ECLP)
MSC Software (MSCS)
YRC Worldwide (YRCW)


Top 15 Holdings by percentage of assets reported on 13F filing

1. Wyndham Worldwide (WYN): 4.29%
2. American Water Works (AWK): 3.18%
3. LM Ericsson Telephone (ERIC): 3.15%
4. Popular (BPOP): 3.10%
5. Goldman Sachs (GS): 3.06%
6. Covanta (CVA): 3.06%
7. Assurant (AIZ): 3.04%
8. Transdigm Group (TDG): 2.97%
9. Jarden (JAH): 2.96%
10. Iconix (ICON): 2.92%
11. Qualcomm (QCOM): 2.92%
12. Dr. Pepper Snapple (DPS): 2.92%
13. Yahoo (YHOO): 2.91%
14. Regions Financial (RF): 2.78%
15. Monsanto (MON): 2.49%
    

Wyndham Worldwide is their largest holding and this is certainly the first time we've seen a hotel at the very top of a hedgie's portfolio. In fact, Valinor's portfolio as a whole doesn't resemble many of the other hedge funds we've looked at as it seems they take the road less traveled. Some examples of this would be positions in Yahoo, Regions Financial, and American Water Works. However, Valinor does join the plethora of other hedge funds betting on Transdigm Group (TDG).

Of the positions they added the most to, Goldman Sachs takes the cake as they boosted their position by over 450%. Other large additions include Popular (BPOP) and Iconix Brand (ICON). There weren't many reductions in their portfolio at all, especially when you consider their reported assets rose 28% on a quarter over quarter basis. Overall, Valinor increased their long US equity portfolio via consumer goods and financials exposure and they reduced services exposure.

Data used for this article comes from Alphaclone, our source for backtesting strategies and sorting through all the hedge fund portfolio maneuvers with ease. Assets reported on the 13F filing were $1.2 billion this quarter compared to $956 million last quarter, almost a 28% increase. Remember that these filings are not representative of the hedge fund's entire base of AUM.

We'll be tracking 40+ prominent funds in our fourth quarter 2009 hedge fund portfolio tracking series. We've already covered Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, Mohnish Pabrai's Investment Fund, Carl Icahn's hedge fund Icahn Partners, David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital, David Tepper's Appaloosa Management, Warren Buffett's portfolio, John Paulson's hedge fund Paulson & Co, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, Dan Loeb's Third Point, Eddie Lampert's RBS Partners, David Ott's Viking Global, and Chris Shumway's hedge fund Shumway Capital Partners, Chase Coleman's Tiger Global, Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, Roberto Mignone's Bridger Management, Thomas Steyer's Farallon Capital, John Burbank's Passport Capital, Brett Barakett's Tremblant Capital, George Soros' hedge fund Soros Fund Management, and Philippe Laffont's Coatue Management Charles Anderson's Fox Point Capital, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, Jonathan Auerbach's Hound Partners, Lee Hobson's Highside Capital, David Stemerman's Conatus Capital, and Matt Iorio's White Elm Capital. Check back daily for our new updates.