Prominent Hedge Funds Short Deutsche Lufthansa and Air France KLM

Various short sale disclosures in European Union markets reveal that numerous prominent hedge funds are short shares of two European airlines: Deutsche Lufthansa AG (LHA.F) and Air France-KLM (AF).

Regulatory rules require funds to publicly disclose when they have a net short position of 0.5% of shares or greater.


Hedge Funds Short Deutsche Lufthansa AG

Senator Investment Group: Net short 0.72% of shares as of July 16th.  This is up from a 0.64% position on July 15th and a 0.54% position on June 8th.

Marshall Wace: Net short 0.7% of shares as of July 22nd, 2015.  This is up from a 0.64% position on July 10th and a 0.55% position on June 19th.

Blue Ridge Capital: Net short 1.02% of shares as of June 18th, 2015.

AKO Capital: Net short 0.69% of shares as of June 29th, 2015.

Discovery Capital: Net short 0.61% as of July 1st.

Lone Pine Capital: Last reported a 0.94% net short position on April 30th, 2015.


Hedge Funds Short Air France-KLM

Blue Ridge Capital: Net short 0.92% of shares as of June 23rd, 2015, an increase from the 0.73% they were short just a day earlier.

Discovery Capital: Net short 0.77% of shares as of July 2nd, 2015.  Up from a 0.63% position on July 1st.

Tyrian Investments: Net short 0.42% of shares on July 1th, down from a net short position of 0.54% on March 5th, 2015.

Odey Asset Management: Net short 0.26% of shares as of July 17th.  This is a decrease from the 0.58% position they had on April 21st and the 1.32% stake they had on February 19th so they've definitely taken down exposure to the name.

AKO Capital: Their last disclosure was a net short of 0.7% of shares back on February 2nd, 2015.

Marshall Wace:  Their net short position size has fluctuated a lot over the past four months.  Their latest disclosure shows a net short of 3.11% as of July 7th.  Their short disclosures in the name go back to April 29th when they were short 2.65%.



You'll notice some overlap in funds on both airline shorts.  You'll also notice another commonality: a lot of 'Tiger Cub' hedge funds, or managers with ties to Tiger Management.

While these positions could either be hedges or alpha shorts, it's still interesting to get a look at the side of the portfolio that's normally quite secretive.

Stay tuned as we reveal more short positions next week.  We've already posted that Lone Pine is short Rolls Royce and Viking Global is short Peugeot. Also, Greenlight Capital is short ARM Holdings.

Hedge Fund Short Positions in Germany: Maverick, Tiger Global, Passport & More

Just yesterday, we posted up a ton of hedge fund short positions in the UK due to new regulations.  Continuing our coverage of EU markets, today we highlight hedge fund short positions in German markets.

More Short Selling Disclosures in EU Countries

What's interesting here is that with the new regulations in EU countries, there are theoretically going to be more filings on shorts than longs.  Public disclosure thresholds now start at -0.5% for shorts while public long disclosure is only required when an investor takes a stake greater than 3% of the company.

Some may argue that this might not be the case due to the fact that more investors go long than short, and typically long positions are sized much larger than short positions due to risk management.  We'll have to wait and see, but so far there's been an onslaught of short filings.


Hedge Fund Short Positions in Germany Revealed

Below is a breakdown of the short positions hedge funds have disclosed as of November 1st/2nd.  The percentage represents how much of the company's stock the fund is short:


Maverick Capital: Short -7.82% Aixtron SE, -0.47% Axel Springer Aktiengesellschaft

Passport Capital: Short -0.61% Nordex SE

Pennant Capital: Short -2.27% Aixtron SE, -0.68% Heidelberger Druckmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft, -0.95% Sky Deutschland, -0.90% TUI AG

Tiger Global: Short -1.99% Asian Bamboo AG, -0.70% SolarWorld Aktiengesellschaft, -0.63% Global PVQ SE

Tiger Management: Short -1.08% Powerland AG

Citadel Advisors:  Short -4.13% Aixtron, -1.82% SolarWorld Aktiengesellschaft, -1.60% Wacker Chemie AG

D.E. Shaw: Short - 0.97% Dragerwerk AG & Co, -.60% Leoni AG


As you can see, numerous funds are short Aixtron, a provider of deposition equipment to the semi-conductor sector.  Maverick's bet against the company is by far the largest we've seen thus far.  We'll continue to track short positions in the German market and will update when appropriate.

For more EU disclosures, head to yesterday's post on hedge fund short positions in the UK.