Hound Partners Boosts Media General Stake

Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund firm Hound Partners has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding its position in Media General (MEG).  Per the filing, Hound now owns 5.63% of MEG with over 7.28 million shares.

This is an increase of over 5.14 million shares since the end of the second quarter when they owned 2.13 million shares.  The filing was made due to activity on August 18th.

You can view the rest of Hound Partners' portfolio in the brand new issue of our newsletter.

Per Google Finance, Media General is "is a connected-screen multimedia company. The Company provides news, information and entertainment. The Company's operating segments include Broadcast and Digital. Its Broadcast segment includes over 70 television stations that are either owned, operated or serviced by the Company in approximately 48 United States markets, all of which are engaged principally in the sale of television advertising. The Company's Digital segment includes the operating results of the Company's digital businesses, as well as the business operations related to the television station companion Websites. Digital segment includes LIN Digital, LIN Mobile, LLC (LIN Mobile), HYFN, Inc. (HYFN), Dedicated Media, Inc. (Dedicated Media), BiteSize TV and Federated Media, as well as the business operations related to the television station companion Websites. LIN Digital provides display and video advertising on LIN Digital's advertising network."

Hound Partners Files 13G on Infoblox

Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund firm Hound Partners has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding shares of Infoblox (BLOX).  Per the filing, Hound now owns 6.2% of the company with over 3.6 million shares.

This is an increase over the 1.93 million shares Hound owned at the end of the first quarter, when they first showed a new long position in the name.  The latest filing was made due to activity on May 10th.

Per Google Finance, Infoblox "provides enterprise and service provider-class solutions to automate management of the critical network infrastructure services. The Company provides network control, network automation and domain name system (DNS) security though appliance-based solutions. The Company's solutions combine real-time Internet protocol address management (IPAM), automation of network control, change and configuration management processes and DNS-based infrastructure security in purpose-built physical and virtual appliances. The Company's functions include delivering critical network protocol services, such as dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP), network change and configuration management, and network infrastructure security. The Company offers four product families: Core Network Services, Infrastructure Security, Cloud Network Automation, and Network Change and Configuration Management.."

Hound Partners Boosts Short in Admiral Group

Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund firm Hound Partners recently filed updated short position disclosures in the UK regarding their short of Admiral Group (LON:ADM).

Per the filings, Hound has disclosed they are now short 1.71% of shares as of October 1st.  This is up from the 1.6% of shares they were short back on June 17th.

Given the volatility in markets as of late, we're providing updates on various hedge fund short positions.  You can scroll through them all by clicking here: hedge fund short positions.

The UK regulatory rules for short position disclosures state that hedge funds must privately file when their net short position eclipses 0.2% of the issued share capital of a company.  Notification is also required again at each 0.1% increment after that.  This applies to both increases and decreases in the position.  Public disclosure is required when net short positions reach 0.5% of issued share capital.  Additionally, disclosure is required when the position subsequently falls below 0.5%.

Per Google Finance, Admiral Group is "a United Kingdom-based company engaged in the provision of car insurance. The Company has four operational segments, which include UK Car Insurance, International Car Insurance, Price Comparison and Other. The UK Car Insurance segment consists of the underwriting of car insurance and other products that supplement the car insurance policy. The International Car Insurance segment consists of the underwriting of car insurance and the generation of revenue from additional products and fees, from underwriting car insurance outside of the United Kingdom. The Price Comparison segment relates to the Company's price comparison Websites; Confused.com in the United Kingdom, Rastreator in Spain, LeLynx in France and compare.com in the United States. The Other segment comprises of the United Kingdom household insurance, the Company's commercial van insurance broker, Gladiator and commercial van insurance. It operates approximately 14 brands in seven countries."

Hound Partners Increases Carter's Stake

Johnathan Auerbach's hedge fund firm Hound Partners filed an amended 13G with the SEC regarding shares of Carter's (CRI).  Per the filing, Hound now owns 6.92% of the company with over 3.7 million shares.

This means they've boosted the number of shares they own by around 10% since the end of the first quarter.  The filing was made due to activity on June 12th.  Conversely, we pointed out a few months ago that Tiger Global had exited its CRI stake.

We've highlighted other recent portfolio activity from Hound here.

Per Google Finance, Carter's is "a branded marketer of apparel for babies and young children in the United States. The Company owns two brand names in the children’s apparel industry, Carter’s and OshKosh. Its Carter’s brand provides apparel for children sizes ranging from newborn to seven. OshKosh brand provides its line of apparel for children sizes newborn to 12. Its Carter’s, OshKosh, and related brands are sold to national department stores, chain and specialty stores and discount retailers."

Hound Partners Boosts Tesoro Holdings

Johnathan Auerbach's hedge fund firm Hound Partners has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding their position in Tesoro (TSO).  Per the filing, Hound now owns 7.08% of the company with over 9.3 million shares.

This is a sizable increase of over 7.8 million shares since their last disclosure from the end of 2013.  The filing was required due to activity on January 24th.

You can view Hound Partners' other recent activity here.

Per Google Finance, Tesoro is "an independent petroleum refiners and marketers in the United States. The Company’s subsidiaries, operating through two business segments: manufacture and sell transportation fuels. Its refining operating segment (refining), which operates seven refineries in the western United States, refines crude oil and other feedstocks into transportation fuels, such as gasoline, gasoline blendstocks, jet fuel and diesel fuel, as well as other products, including heavy fuel oils, liquefied petroleum gas, petroleum coke and asphalt."

Hound Partners Increases Carter's Position

Johnathan Auerbach's hedge fund Hound Partners has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding Carter's (CRI).  Per the filing, Hound has disclosed a 5.01% ownership stake in CRI with over 2.73 million shares.

This means they've added to their position by 289,815 shares since the end of the third quarter.  The filing was required due to activity on January 8th.

Hound is a 'Tiger Seed' as they were seeded by Tiger Management's Julian Robertson.  Fellow Tiger Seed hedge fund, Tiger Global, also added to their CRI stake a few months ago.

Per Google Finance, Carter's is "a branded marketer of apparel for babies and young children in the United States. The Company owns two brand names in the children’s apparel industry, Carter’s and OshKosh. Its Carter’s brand provides apparel for children sizes ranging from newborn to seven. OshKosh brand provides its line of apparel for children sizes newborn to 12. Its Carter’s, OshKosh, and related brands are sold to national department stores, chain and specialty stores and discount retailers."

Hound Partners Sells Some Network 1 Security Solutions (NSSI)

Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund Hound Partners just filed a Form 4 with the SEC regarding shares of Network 1 Security Solutions (NSSI). Per the filing, we see that Hound Partners sold 64,815 shares of NSSI at a price of $1.60 on October 14th and 15th. The hedge fund's various investment vehicles still own a substantial amount of shares though as Hound Partners Offshore Fund retains 1,130,253 shares, Hound Partners LP holds 786,784 shares, and Hound Partners LLC owns 214,731 NSSI shares.

In the past, we've covered Hound Partners' position in NSSI and revealed that they also own NSSI warrants with a conversion price of $2.00 and an expiration date of April 16th, 2012. Hound is a New York based firm founded by Auerbach and seeded by Tiger Management's Julian Robertson. As such, it is referred to as one of the 'Tiger Seeds.'

Taken from Google Finance, Network 1 Security Solutions is "engaged in the acquisition, development, licensing and protection of its intellectual property. It owns six patents issued by the United States Patent Office that relate to various telecommunications and data networking technologies and include, among other things, patents covering the control of power delivery over local area networks (LANs) for the purpose of remotely powering network devices over Ethernet (PoE) networks and systems and methods for the transmission of audio, video and data over LANS."

To see what other hedge funds are investing in, scroll through our recent coverage.

Jonathan Auerbach's Hedge Fund Hound Partners Discloses Position

Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund Hound Partners has filed a Form 4 and an amended 13D with the SEC regarding shares of Avantair (AAIR). In the filings, we see that Hound was merely re-shuffling their portfolio between their related investment vehicle entities. However, it did give us a glance as to their position sizing of a position they already held. Hound Partners now shows a 13.66% stake in Avantair with 3,977,714 shares. This means they practically kept their stake unchanged as they've only sold 3,846 shares since October 2009 when we saw their last disclosure regarding this position.

Their current stake includes 2,797,274 shares that may be acquired upon conversion of Series A convertible preferred stock into common stock. Those shares have a conversion price of $3.574909 and each share of Series A preferred can be converted into 27.973 shares of common. In terms of other recent activity out of this hedge fund we also updated you in April that Hound Partners disclosed two positions.

Hound is a New York based firm that Auerbach started with assistance from legendary hedgie Julian Robertson. He is one of the many 'Tiger Seeds' that Robertson has seeded in an attempt to sprout up talented new investment managers. Auerbach of course previously worked for Robertson at legendary hedge fund Tiger Management.

Taken from Google Finance, Avantair is "engaged in the sale of fractional ownership interests and charter card usage of professionally piloted aircraft for personal and business use and the management of its aircraft fleet. As of June 30, 2009, the Company operated 52 aircraft within its fleet, which is comprised of 46 aircraft for fractional ownership, five company- owned core aircraft and one leased and company- managed aircraft."

For more from Jonathan Auerbach's firm, you can view our previous coverage of Hound Partners portfolio.

Jonathan Auerbach's Hound Partners Discloses Two Positions

We recently got a glimpse of two positions from Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund Hound Partners. His firm filed two Form 4's with the SEC in regards to shares of Rancher Energy (RNCHQ) and Network-1 Security Solutions (NSSI). Before we dive into the data specifics, we need to preface this by saying that these filings were made to convey the re-balancing of positions amongst their various investment partnerships (i.e. shifting the stake between Hound Partners LP, Hound Partners Offshore Fund LP, & Hound Partners, LLC). So, as far as we can tell, they weren't actively buying and selling. However, these disclosures did give us a glimpse at two positions that did not appear when we previously looked at Hound Partners' portfolio. Those of you who want the Cliffs notes of all this should walk away just knowing that Hound has revealed that they own positions in both of these companies.

We're not quite sure how long Auerbach's hedge fund has owned these names for two reasons. Firstly, both of these companies trade in over the counter markets so they might not be deemed as reportable securities for purposes of 13F filings (the form we use to track hedge fund portfolios). Secondly, Hound owns warrants in both of these companies which don't necessarily show up in 13F's either. So, for all we know they could have owned these two warrant positions for quite some time. There's just no way for us to tell, so we can't deem these "new" positions. That said, we'll just dish out the facts here and hang with us as there are a lot of moving parts.

As per the Form 4, they shifted shares of Rancher Energy (RNCHQ) between their investment vehicles. After all was said and done, Hound Partners LP owned 3,909,067 shares, Hound Partners Offshore owned 5,581,228 shares, and Hound Partners LLC owned 1,071,502 shares. They also disclosed warrant positions in RNCHQ, again re-balancing between their various entities. The warrants have a conversion price of $1.5, a date excercisable of December 22nd, 2006 and an expiration date of December 22nd, 2011. These are common stock warrants and Hound Partners owns 986,970 worth. Hound Partners Offshore owns 1,409,161 worth, and Hound Partners LLC now owns 270,535 worth. Rancher Energy of course filed for chapter 11 reorganization in late October last year.

Secondly, Auerbach's hedge fund firm basically did the same thing with their Network-1 Security Solutions Position (NSSI). After all the re-shuffling was completed, Hound Partners LP owned 812,985 shares, Hound Partners Offshore owned 1,160,753 shares, and Hound Partners LLC owned 222,845 shares. Auerbach's firm also shows a position in warrants with a conversion price of $2, an exercisable date of April 16th, 2007 and an expiration date of April 16th, 2012. Hound Partners LP in total owns 400,957, Hound Partners Offshore owns 572,472 worth, and Hound Partners LLC owns 109,905 worth. Whew, got all that?

As we mentioned earlier, the main takeaway here is that we now know Hound Partners owns positions in these two companies, information we previously did not have when we started tracking them. Hound is a New York based firm that Auerbach started with assistance from legendary hedgie Julian Robertson. He is one of the many 'Tiger Seeds' that Robertson has sprouted up in an attempt to crank out a new round of successful investment managers. Auerbach of course previously worked for Robertson's Tiger Management.

Taken from Google Finance, Rancher Energy is "is an energy company engaged in the development, production and marketing of oil and gas in North America. The Company operates three fields in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming, which is located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States."

Network-1 Security Solutions "is engaged in acquisition, development, licensing and protection of its intellectual property. The Company owns six patents issued by the United States Patent Office that relate to various telecommunications and data networking technologies (the Patent Portfolio) and include, among other things, patents covering the control of power delivery over local area networks (LANs) for the purpose of remotely powering network devices over Ethernet (PoE) networks and systems and methods for the transmission of audio, video and data over LANS."

For more from Jonathan Auerbach's firm, you can view our coverage of Hound Partners portfolio.

Jonathan Auerbach's Hound Partners Bets On Transdigm Group (TDG): 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 Jonathan Auerbach's hedge fund Hound Partners. Hound is a New York based firm that Auerbach started with assistance from legendary hedgie Julian Robertson. He is one of the many 'Tiger Seeds' that Robertson has sprouted up in an attempt to crank out a new round of successful investment managers. Auerbach of course previously worked for Robertson's Tiger Management.

If you hadn't noticed, we're starting to get into some 'smaller funds' (and we use that term loosely) in regards to assets under management. We started with funds in the billions and now we're covering some that manage hundreds of millions. We've elected to do so in an effort to identify up and coming managers as well as to showcase how smaller funds often run more concentrated portfolios and are easier to track.

The positions listed below were Hound Partners' 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
DirecTV (DTV) & Liberty Media Starz (LSTZA) ~ both as a result of the recent merger
Windstream (WIN)


Increased Positions
Monsanto (MON): Increased position size by 68.7%
Heckman (HEK): Increased by 18.9%
Transdigm Group (TDG): Increased by 15.8%
Chimera (CIM): Increased by 12.4%


Reduced Positions
American Tower (AMT): Reduced position size by 49.6%
Rambus (RMBS): Reduced by 42.1%
Abovenet (ABVT): Reduced by 38%
Heckmann WTS (HEK-WS): Reduced by 33.5%
Arabian Amern (ARSD): Reduced by 32.9%
Grace WR & Co (GRA): Reduced by 27.7%
HQ Sustainable (HQS): Reduced by 22.1%



Removed Positions (Sold out completely):
Liberty Media (LMDIA) ~ merger complete
Berkley (WRB)
Google (GOOG)
Myriad Pharma (MYRX)
Alexandria Real Estate (ARE)


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

1. Transdigm Group (TDG): 13.98%
2. DirecTV (DTV): 10.6%
3. Kinder Morgan (KMR): 10.17%
4. Liberty Media Starz (LSTZA): 8.57%
5. Grace WR & Co (GRA): 7.01%
6. Petrohawk (HK): 6.86%
7. Monsanto (MON): 6.73%
8. Abovenet (ABVT): 6.31%
9. Heckmann (HEK): 5.44%
10. Covanta (CVA): 4.73%
11. Great Lakes (GLDD): 3.98%
12. Chimera (CIM): 3.86%
13. Echostar (SATS): 2.40%
14. Usec Bonds: 1.97%
15. American Tower (AMT): 1.80%
    

While these SEC filings obviously do not disclose their entire set of positions or assets under management, one thing you can immediately notice about Hound Partners is the fact that a lot of their US long equity stakes are very concentrated. Their top 10 positions are far more concentrated than the vast majority of hedge funds we've tracked in our series. In fact, their 10th largest stake garners a larger portfolio weighting than many other hedgies' top position. (Keep in mind that there are still some gaps left in the portfolio picture that we can't see since they aren't included in disclosures). That said, Hound still runs a more concentrated basket of stocks and as such is a good fund for tracking purposes as you know they have conviction in their plays.

One of their interesting positions we took note of was Heckmann (HEK) as we've not seen it pop up in other hedgie portfolios. In the past, this has been labeled as a backdoor Chinese water play. Their largest and most notable stake though is in Transdigm Group (TDG) and we highlight this because Dan Loeb's Third Point is also betting big on TDG.

Auerbach's hedge fund had a massive stake in Liberty Media (over 14% of their previously reported assets) that has now translated into positions in Liberty Starz and DirecTV as a result of the merger. We see yet another hedge fund interested in tower stocks and Hound Partners has chosen to play this data theme via American Tower. However, they did chop their position in half over the past quarter so take note. The only major addition they made was to their existing stake in Monsanto (MON) as they increased it by over 68%. In terms of sales, they let a third of their GRA position go and cut even more of their ABVT stake.

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 $348 million this quarter compared to $347 million last quarter. 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, and Charles Anderson's Fox Point Capital. Check back daily for our new updates.