Warren Buffett CNBC Interview: Summary & Transcript

CNBC's Becky Quick interviewed Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett on a range of topics yesterday.  Below is a summary of noteworthy comments and a link to the full transcript.


On tax reform:  "It's a huge tailwind. And it's particularly a tailwind if you've got-- particularly for companies that have had lots of depreciation and taken bonus depreciation up front. So it's a big item-- there. Not as many companies have lots of appreciation and marketable securities, but it's a big item for those that do."


On market valuation:  "I mean, it--in fact, I-- the market-- the stock market relative to the long-term bond market-- people have free choices, pretty much, if they're going to be in marketable securities. They can own reasonably long-term bonds, they can own equities, or they can keep it in short-term cash equivalents. And--- if-you had to choose between buying long-term bonds or equities-- I would choose equities in a minute now ...

That doesn't mean I think the stock market is gonna go up or anything else. But if- I were going to own a 30-year government bond or own equity for 30 years, I think equities will considerably outperform that 30-year bond over the 30 years. I don't know what they're gonna do in any day or week or month ...

In-- so far this year we've been-- a net buyer, although we sold-- a chunk of Phillips to get below 10%"


On whether he would buy any parts of General Electric (GE):  "If we like the business and the price was right, we could write a check for cash. And that would apply to GE. They've got a few big businesses. I don't think they want to sell them, but they have some smaller units that they're interested in selling. But we're always in the market for a big business that we can understand and that we like, and we think that we've got the management for and so on."


On Buffett's favorite stock, besides Berkshire:  "Well, if you look at our holdings, you would assume that we like them in the order in which they rank by dollar value of holdings. But if you look at them in terms of recent purchases, you know, over the last year, we've bought more Apple than anything else ... I haven't told you what I might have been buying in the last week. Or month"


Shoutout to CNBC for asking the question we submitted on Twitter via the #AskWarren hashtag:  Has Buffett ever disagreed with any of Todd (Combs) or Ted's (Weschler) investments, and why?



"Yeah, well, they make their own decisions, 100% and they each manage $12 billion or $13 billion now. Well, they started actually, I think when Todd came about a year ahead of Ted. And I think maybe it was $2 billion, but it has increased at various points and then they've earned a lot of money for Berkshire, which builds up for them, too. There's certainly – they've done things I wouldn't have done. But I've done things they wouldn't do, too. I mean, I want them to figure out their own. The choices – they are good at managing money, and they've got the advantage of managing smaller sums than I'm running. But they've got the disadvantage of running quite a bit larger sums than most people run. I mean, it gets more difficult with size. But they not only have done a good job of managing the money and trusted them. But they've contributed to Berkshire in just dozens of ways. They were sensational hires."

Becky Quick then followed up and asked if he talks to Todd/Ted about investments beforehand:

"No, not ahead a time. And there's a number of them I haven't talked with them at all. I couldn't even – I couldn't name three quarters of their portfolio. I couldn't tell you the amounts. I don't remember that well. But I've gotten ideas from them. But they take on other tasks. I mean, Todd is on the health care situation. He's there on Saturday. I was there on Saturday. He's there all day talking to people around the country in terms of looking for the right CEO and that sort of thing. They are enormous contributors to Berkshire."


On owning Samsung in the past:  "I don't own them, and Berkshire doesn't own them now. But Berkshire has owned Samsung. It doesn't get reported in our 13F.  But I think I'm right on that. I'm 99% sure. And so we bought some when Samsung was at about a million yuan – you got to divide that by something over 1,000 – we bought a reasonable amount. We did sell it when it went up. It's higher than this now. It went up to 1.8 million, or something. I think it's around 2 million, 2.3 million or 2.4 million. The yuan went in our favor a little bit too. So we did a little bit better in dollars."


On why he sold IBM in favor of buying more Apple (AAPL):  "Well I was wrong on – at least I felt I was wrong on IBM. Now, I may have been wrong when I sold it, too. But I certainly was wrong when I bought it. And I've felt that Apple has an extraordinary consumer franchise. Apple's a different kind of business than IBM. They're both tech, obviously, in a major way. And they even have a joint venture, you know, on some things. But I think I understand consumer behavior perhaps better than I do the tech business. It wouldn't take much to beat it. And I liked it, I like Tim Cook very much. I like their policies. I see how strong that ecosystem is. It's to an extraordinary degree. I mean, I look at my grandchildren, my great grandchildren and everybody in the office, I mean, their families. I talk to the people at the Furniture Mart when the ten hadn't arrived, nobody goes over to, you know, buy an Android. I mean, you are very, very, very locked in at least psychologically and mentally, to the product you're using. I mean, you got all kinds of stuff up on there. It's a very sticky product."


On the airline industry (he owns stakes in AAL, UAL, DAL, LUV): "It's-- a business that's-- always subject to somebody doing something very dumb competitively. And—-- they've done it a lot in the past. There was more chance of them doing it when there were seven of 'em than the big ones, than-- than four. I mean, the industry was suicidally competitive for decades. I mean, they net lost money-- and-- while they were growing like crazy in units. And I was on the board of U.S. Air so I saw how it all happened. And it can turn into fierce competitive battles that'll wipe out earnings. Or it can be a business that's more decent, but still subject to lots of competition. And-- it's really hard to know, you know, for sure how it will develop. It's-- not risk free in their competition at all. In-- in the railroad business, all the tracks have been pretty much laid and all of that. So that settled into a business. Now, it's regulated and means that your earnings, you know, can only-- you're a common carrier. And-- many places, you compete with another railroad, and other places, you don't. And there're different rules that apply even in terms of pricing in those cases. But it's a perfectly decent business. It will lose volume in coal over time. And that's an important product. But it'll probably gain in other areas. So it's-- it's two different animals."


On stocks and volatility:  "Well, some people should not own stocks at all because they just get too upset with price fluctuations. If you're going to do dumb things because a stock goes down, you shouldn't own a stock at all ... But some people are not actually emotionally or psychologically fit to own stocks. But I think more of them would be if you get educated on what you're really buying, which is part of a business. And the longer you hold stocks, the less risky they become, whereas the longer the maturity of a bond, the more risky it becomes."

Here's a link to the full CNBC Warren Buffett interview transcript.

And for even more, be also sure to check out Warren Buffett's 2017 annual letter.

Warren Buffett Sells One Third of IBM Stake

On the heels of Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting, CNBC's Becky Quick has reported that Warren Buffett has sold about a third of his stake in IBM (IBM) in the first and second quarters of 2017. 

Buffett is quoted as saying, "I don't value IBM the same way that I did six years ago when I started buying ... I've revalued it somewhat downward."

It seems that once IBM started trading above $180 they started selling. 

Buffett cited increased competition as one of the main drivers of his decision.  Berkshire still owns over 50 million IBM shares.

In other recent portfolio activity, we highlighted how Berkshire Hathaway had been buying Liberty SiriusXM.

Per Google Finance, IBM is "a technology company. The Company operates through five segments: Cognitive Solutions, Global Business Services (GBS), Technology Services & Cloud Platforms, Systems and Global Financing. The Cognitive Solutions segment delivers a spectrum of capabilities, from descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics to cognitive systems. Cognitive Solutions includes Watson, a cognitive computing platform that has the ability to interact in natural language, process big data, and learn from interactions with people and computers. The GBS segment provides clients with consulting, application management services and global process services. The Technology Services & Cloud Platforms segment provides information technology infrastructure services. The Systems segment provides clients with infrastructure technologies. The Global Financing segment includes client financing, commercial financing, and remanufacturing and remarketing."

What We're Reading ~ 4/27/16

Second level thinking: what smart people use to outperform [Farnam Street]

Consumption in China is resilient, despite troubled economy [Economist]

What if China already had a hard landing? [FT Alphaville]

Baidu - a hidden gem [Variant Views]

A look at Expeditors International [Rational Walk]

The curious case of Hercules Offshore [Oozing Alpha]

A subprime boom, insane interest rates, predatory lending: sound familiar? [Motherjones]

Luck meets perseverance: the creation of IBM's competitive advantage [Farnam Street]

A look at India's e-commerce market through Flipkart [Founding Fuel]

The extinction invention [MIT Technology Review]

Learning Larry Page's Alphabet [Fast Company]

The case for investing in Latin America [Bloomberg]

The affordability crisis: what happens when millennials can't afford homes? [Apartment List]

More than 40% of student borrowers aren't making payments [WSJ]

47% of Americans can't come up with $400 in an emergency [The Atlantic]

Will driverless cars mean the end of auto insurance? [CSMonitor]

Inside the fall of SunEdison [WSJ]

Lessons from SunEdison's collapse [BaseHitInvesting]

Facebook wants to be the layer between you and the future [Buzzfeed]

Inside Apple's secretive iPhone factory [Bloomberg]

What We're Reading ~ 11/11/15

Dream Big: How the Brazilian Trio behind 3G Capital acquired AB Inbev, BK & Heinz [Correa]

10 questions to help define your investment philosophy [A Wealth of Common Sense]

A way to detect bias [Paul Graham]

What the Marines taught me about investing [WSJ]

The peril and opportunity of China [Mauldin]

Burbank's Passport says no place safe in China-led decline [Bloomberg]

Kyle Bass on China's looming banking crisis and the US economy [Fortune]

Platform Specialty Products could rebound [Barrons]

On Warren Buffett's stake in IBM [Medium]

On the focus of short-term profits [NYTimes]

How FICO became outdated [Pymnts]

Why the next sports empire will be built on eSports [Redef]

America's exurbs are booming [New Geography]

Summary of Warren Buffett's Recent Media Appearances

Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett recently made the media rounds so here's a quick summary.

In his interview with Fox Business, Buffett said that his brick business isn't doing as well as his carpet business.  He also noted that furniture retailing is doing well.  He also said, "The insurance business (GEICO) has been quite good to us over the years, and continues to be."

Regarding oil, Buffett points out a common misperception that his railroad (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) is not as affected as people might think.

When asked if he would raise rates in September if he was on the Federal Reserve, he said he probably wouldn't.

Embedded below is the video of Buffett's interview on Fox Business:





Buffett also talked with CNBC.  There, he said that he bought more IBM (IBM) thus far in the third quarter.

Interestingly, Buffett said that "I'll never go below $20 billion in cash."  This pertains to Berkshire's upcoming purchase of Precision Castparts (PCP) where he'll opt to finance part of the deal with debt in order to maintain that certain cash level.

Buffett also said that on big down days with higher volume in the stock market, Berkshire will be out buying more than usual of certain stocks if for instance they were buying 20% of the volume for that day.  He likes to stay around that level so that he doesn't affect the price too much.

He re-emphasized his focus on 5-10 years from now as he thinks markets will be higher then and that's all that really matters to him.  He isn't concerned with short-term gyrations and isn't about to predict what will happen in the near-term.

On why he bought a bunch of Phillips 66 (PSX), Buffett said, "I had always intended that we would come back in, assuming the price is right.  PSX has no upstream production.  PSX is not a pure refiner, they've got a big chemical division.  We're buying it because we like the company and we like the management very much."

Embedded below is the video of Buffett's interview with CNBC:




Lastly, Buffett also chatted with Bloomberg.  There, he revealed that he doesn't see local TV broadcasting as a growth business.

On the global economy, he noted that, "I think it's unlikely that the world has some great slowdown, but it always can."

He also noted he's bullish on China over its long-term potential.

Embedded below is the video of Buffett's talk with Bloomberg:

Stan Druckenmiller on Markets, The Fed, & Which Investors He Admires Most

Stanley Druckenmiller, a legendary hedge fund manager (formerly of Duquesne Capital), was interviewed by Kelly Evans on CNBC today and shared his thoughts on the markets and other topics.  Here's some of the key takeaways: 

On the current US markets:  "By historic, fundamental measures, we are extremely high.  Stock market to GDP, which I know is one of Mr. Buffett's favorite measures is probably the highest its been in the last hundred years with an eight month exception around the 1999-2000 period."

He also points to the strong dollar as a headwind for earnings.  He thinks stocks are high by historical measures, but the monetary policy has been so aggressive that they should be high.  He says you should short bonds, not stocks if you think interest rates are going up.

Lastly, he mentioned, "I have positions in the United States, but net-net because of the valuations we talked about and because I'm encouraged by what I'm hearing out of the Fed in terms of them tightening, I'm not all that excited about the U.S."

On the Fed:  He thinks it'd be great if the Fed acts now because he believes there's higher risk in the US economy by acting later.

On which investors he admires most:  He singled out "three lions" he thinks that are talented younger investors who will be considered great one day:  Zach Schreiber at Point State Capital (used to work with Druckenmiller at Duquesne), Chase Coleman at Tiger Global, and Eric Mandelblatt at Soroban Capital (all of which Market Folly covers.) 

On his thoughts on IBM:  He disagrees with Warren Buffett and quoted him saying, "An investor should never let someone else's opinion drive their decision in stocks."  Buffett thinks IBM's problem is cyclical, whereas Druckenmiller thinks its secular.

On foreign markets & positions:  "I just think Europe and Japan are much, much more attractive ... The majority of my long exposure is in Japan and Europe, not in the United States ... You know, a few months ago we started buying the-- I would say global consumer brands who are primarily stable in nature like-- Unilever or Pernod Ricard or L'Oréal. But recently we've shifted into more cyclical names like Volkswagen, BMW, Airbus. When you get the-- you get the tailwind of-- the euro having gone from 140 to 120, which will give them an earnings push in addition at a lower energy. And they are great consumer brand names in and of themselves."

You can read the full transcript of the interview here.

Sequoia Fund Investor Day Transcript 2014

Today we wanted to highlight the transcript from Sequoia Fund's investor day earlier this year.  This is old (6 months ago) but is still worth reading due to the in-depth color they provide on their investments and the fact that they're long-term shareholders so most of the positions still remain in their portfolio.

Positions they talk about include Valeant Pharmaceutical (VRX), Allergan (AGN), Google (GOOGL/GOOG),  Mastercard (MA), TJ Maxx (TJX), Omnicom (OMC), IBM (IBM), Ritchie Brothers (RBA), Fastenal (FAST), Costco (COST), Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/B), O'Reilly Auto (ORLY), Rolls Royce (LON:RR), Precision Castparts (PCP), and more.

Embedded below is the Sequoia Fund's Investor Day Transcript: 



You can download a .pdf copy here.

And given their long-term focus, we'd also point you to Sequoia Fund's 2013 investor day transcript as well as Sequoia Fund's 2012 annual letter if you haven't read those either.

East Coast's Q2 Letter: What Defines A Great Business & A Look At IBM

Christopher Begg's is out with East Coast Asset Management's Q2 letter entitled, "The Beekeepers" where he makes an excellent analogy to investing.  In it, he also delves into what defines a great business and discusses IBM (IBM) as one of their new holdings in context of a larger theme.

Before diving into the IBM idea, we wanted to highlight a few of his salient points from the letter.  He makes a great analogy in the letter writing, "Bees also suffer from the biggest problem of most investors - the inability to sit in a room and do nothing."  Indeed, many great investors have extolled the virtues of patience in investing.

And on the topic of crowded trades, Begg writes,

"We observe that many investors appear to share similar behavior.  Too much demand chasing too little supply will eventually drive prices to extremes, diminishing the resources or future returns for a particular asset class.  We are witnessing this today with money markets and fixed-income securities where yields hover near all-time lows and the crowded hive has to swarm to find more resources."


Why East Coast Likes IBM

Begg highlights that Warren Buffett's Berkshire has become the largest shareholder of IBM (over $13 billion).  East Coast added the name to their books in the quarter and here's some of the rationale as to why:

- IBM has averaged unlevered returns on net tangible assets over the last five years of greater than 20%.

- Their durable competitive advantage exists in the sheer depth of their proprietary intellectual knowledge with which they can solve their customer's complex problems.

- They've targeted four key areas of market opportunity: developing markets, cloud and smarter computing, business analytics and optimization, and smarter planets/smarter cities.

- Perhaps one of the most important: pricing power.  As we all know, Buffett loves pricing power.

- Effective management.


Read their full thoughts in East Coast's Q2 letter embedded below:





For more from this firm, be sure to also check out their Q1 letter on mispricings as well as their thoughts on competitive advantage.

Goldman Sachs Very Important Short Positions For Hedge Funds: Q1 2012

Goldman Sachs is out with its Q1 2012 Hedge Fund Trend Monitor and we've already posted up Goldman's VIP list of most important stocks to top funds.  Now we're posting a new addition to their research: the very important short position list.

This tracks short exposure of hedge funds as an equal-weighted basket that "consists of 50 S&P 500 constituents with the highest total dollar value of short interest outstanding."  It can be accessed on Bloomberg via < GSTHVISP >.

Goldman emphasizes that this list is not based on 13F holdings (because hedge funds are not required to disclose shorts).  They also note that it's not a basket of stocks most held short.


Goldman Sachs Very Important Short Positions For Hedge Funds

Stock, value of short interest (in $ billions)

1. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ): $2.9
2. Exxon Mobil (XOM): 2.8
3. Intel (INTC): 2.6
4. International Business Machines (IBM): 2.4
5. Amazon.com (AMZN): 2.4
6. AT&T (T): 2.3
7. Chevron (CVX): 2.1
8. Verizon (VZ): 1.8
9. Duke Energy (DUK): 1.7
10. Walt Disney (DIS): 1.5
11. Abbott Laboratories (ABT): 1.4
12. Coca Cola (KO): 1.4
13. General Electric (GE): 1.4
14. Walmart Stores (WMT): 1.3
15. Caterpillar (CAT): 1.2
16. ConocoPhillips (COP): 1.2
17. Walgreen (WAG): 1.2
18. Time Warner (TWX): 1.1
19. Lockheed Martin (LMT): 1.1
20. Home Depot (HD): 1.1
21. Dell (DELL): 1.1
22. Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY): 1.1
23. Oracle (ORCL): 1.1
24. Schlumberger (SLB): 1.0
25. United Parcel Service (UPS): 1.0


Of the above. David Einhorn recently made comments about Amazon.com (AMZN) at the Ira Sohn conference.  While he seemed to be skeptical of the company during his talk, he did not say he was short.  He highlighted that the company has destroyed other businesses, taking market share, but criticized their weak profit growth.

Jim Chanos is short Dell (DELL) and he points to the decline of personal computing in favor of tablets and other mobile devices.  He's been correct in that regard as Dell recently reported declines in those segments in their latest earnings release.  But of course the bull case points to Dell's other business lines as they shift toward the enterprise. 


Here's the rest of Goldman's Very Important Short Positions List:

26. Amgen (AMGN): 1.0
27. AvalonBay (AVB): 1.0
28. Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG): 1.0
29. Boston Properties (BXP): 1.0
30. Union Pacific (UNP): 0.9
31. Simon Property Group (SPG): 0.9
32. Procter & Gamble (PG): 0.9
33. Cerner (CERN): 0.9
34. Host Hotels & Resorts (HST): 0.8
35. Kohl's (KSS): 0.8
36. Waste Management (WM): 0.8
37. CenturyLink (CTL): 0.8
38. Carnival (CCL): 0.8
39. Philip Morris (PM): 0.8
40. American Express (AXP): 0.8
41. DuPont (DD): 0.8
42. McDonalds (MCD): 0.8
43. MetLife (MET): 0.8
44. Fastenal (FAST): 0.8
45. Merck (MRK): 0.7
46. Comcast (CMCSA): 0.7
47. Sysco (SYY): 0.7
48. Freeport McMoran (FCX): 0.7
49. Alcoa (AA): 0.7
50. Staples (SPLS): 0.7


Be sure to also check out Goldman Sachs VIP list of most important stocks to hedge funds for Q1 2012.

Hedge Fund Lansdowne Partners Favors Large Caps In Developed Countries

Lansdowne Partners have been regularly rated as one of the best hedge fund managers in London. Whilst they do have global macro and long-only funds they specialize in long-short stock picking. Their flagship, the UK Equity Fund, has returned an impressive 19.37% annualized since 2001 (see table below). Additionally, we recently saw that their UK strategy fund was up 0.32% for the month of October and is now up 22.19% for the year.

	YTD	6m	1y	3y	5y
Lansdowne UK Equity Fund	22.9%	14.0%	24.1%	71.4%	161.9%

Source: Trustnet Offshore

One of the interesting things about Lansdowne is that they currently have a much more bullish outlook on the economy and equities than many other hedge funds we follow on Market Folly. Lansdowne are strongly opposed to a downbeat view and point to a number of factors that they see as positive for equities and the economy in general.

They argue that current valuations in both absolute terms and certainly relative to government and corporate bonds are compelling. They believe that it is premature to worry about growth disappointments because there are still large boosts to growth yet to come from the normalization of the inventory cycle and importantly from the lagged response to the expansive fiscal and monetary actions. In addition, they argue that interest rates are unlikely to rise for some time because the authorities are likely to want to see firm evidence of a recovery. The output gap - estimated to be approximately 4% in the developed markets - means that inflationary pressures are likely to remain muted for some time thereby extending the period that policy can remain accommodative.

In their September 2009 report, Lansdowne argue that a combination of five factors make large-cap companies in developed countries particularly attractive at the moment. Firstly, large companies have done particularly well at cutting costs during the recession, especially labor costs. Consequently, earnings (and more importantly cash flows) have been protected. Secondly, there will be a positive, lagged impact from the fall in commodity prices on input costs mostly from natural gas and oil. Thirdly, currency tailwinds will help US and UK denominated companies where their respective currencies have been weak over the last 12 months. Fourthly, stronger companies will capture market share from weaker competitors; particularly from those who have over-extended balance sheets and are financially constrained. In addition, merger and acquisition opportunities are now back on the agenda. Finally, emerging markets remain a strategically important and ever increasing focus of growth for multinational companies with strong brands.

Lansdowne say that they continue to discover a very large range of potential investment opportunities. In case you were wondering, all this bullishness is not just talk. In their October report, Lansdowne noted that their gross long exposure level was 149% of NAV, up from the previous month (it also includes a 10% short futures position). This is extremely close to the top of their stated range (150%) but even so, they were not inclined to take profits believing that further upside was achievable. Gross short positions were 72% of NAV. Compare that exposure with, for example, David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital who recently disclosed they were 99% long 59% short. Lansdowne say that they are likely to remain bullish until the authorities step back from their accommodative stance and raise interest rates, which they believe is unlikely in the short-term.

We can get an idea of the type of large-cap company that Landowne believe will prosper going forward because they detail their largest 11 holdings in their UK Strategic Equity Fund in their September letter:

Barclays, BHP Billiton, Coca Cola, Colgate, Goldman Sachs, International Business Machines, JP Morgan, Palmolive, Rio Tinto, Roche, Wells Fargo

Plenty of US large-caps there for a fund with a supposed UK focus! In terms of sector and thematic positioning from their September update, they maintained exposure to the banking and mining sectors. Lansdowne believe that the biggest exogenous threat to their world view would be 'cost push inflation' arising from the commodity markets. In order to combat that threat they own out-of-the money call options on oil and miners like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

In their October letter, they note that they added to their positions in Lloyds and Barclays on weakness. To hedge this, they also added to their shorts in the insurance sector. They also boosted their position in Roche up "to a full weighting" after shares slumped around Q3 sales. They think the pharmaceutical sector is intriguing here after underperforming for many years.

Now let's turn to look at what we can learn about Lansdowne's holdings in the UK market from their regulatory filings to the London Stock Market. Our primer on understanding the UK disclosure system can be found here. Remember that there is no equivalent of the 13F form for hedge funds in the UK and generally speaking hedge funds only have to disclose long positions that are greater than 3 percent of a company's outstanding equity. It's important to recognize that the UK disclosure system provides us with a distorted view of hedge fund holdings as large-cap holdings are rarely seen because they often do not breach the 3 percent threshold but investments in mid-cap and particularly small-cap companies show up prominently. Of course this information is still useful because when a hedge fund builds a large stake in a small or medium sized company, it demonstrates a great deal of commitment to the investment thesis as such positions can be difficult to exit at speed, particularly in a down market.

Company	Symbol	Date	Shares	% of Equity
Inmarsat	ISAT	01/07/2007	46001346	10.06
		03/01/2008	50958170	11.14
		14/05/2009	55810250	12.14
		02/09/2009	59942059	13.04
The Evolution Group	EVG	27/04/2009	11305306	5.03
Henderson Group	HGG	31/10/2008	45098010	6.22
Proximangen Neuroscience	PRX	20/03/2007	1520270	7.59
		25/11/2008	3156723	14.63
		24/06/2009	14849580	25.92
Oxford Catalysts Group	OCG	16/11/2006	3106609	8.32
		10/10/2007	5174586	12.76
		25/01/2008	5309586	13.09
		20/11/2008	10109586	16.95
Renewable Energy	REH	15/07/2008	5633166	8.26
Afren	AFR	15/04/2008	47208333	12.83
		07/05/2009	82,208,333	11.53
		29/05/2009	78,139,283	10.91
Heritage Oil	HOIL	03/04/2008	18996540	7.45
		22/06/2009	28776161	10.05
IP Group	IPO	08/05/2007	24674785	9.99
		04/02/2008	32924785	13.15

It's interesting that Lansdowne holds a big 13 percent chunk of Inmarsat (ISAT). ISAT provides global mobile and transportable broadband communication services to maritime, aeronautical and land mobile users. Many believe that activist hedge fund Harbinger Capital is likely to make a formal offer for Inmarsat anytime soon. Harbinger currently hold a 29 percent stake in the company as we detailed in our article on Harbinger's activist positions in the UK.

Renewable Energy is a position that Lansdowne share with Paul Tudor Jones' hedge fund Tudor BVI Global. (See our article on Tudor's holdings in the UK here). Renewable Energy Holdings owns and operates windfarms in Germany and Wales. The Company’s subsidiaries are also involved in developing wave power technology and as a by-product, desalinated water. Oxford Catalysts Group PLC has close links with the University of Oxford and is engaged in the design and development of catalysts and microchannel systems. It develops technology for the production of clean fuels from both conventional fossil fuels and renewable sources, such as biowaste. IP Group helps owners of intellectual property like universities to develop commercial ventures through the formation of long-term partnerships and the management of venture funds. They focus on early-stage United Kingdom technology and pharmaceutical companies.

The holdings in Herderson Group and Evolution Group provide support for the idea that Lansdowne believe in further recovery in the financial sector. Henderson Group Plc is a United Kingdom-based company engaged in providing investment management services. The Evolution Group through its subsidiaries is involved in investment banking and also provides private client investment management.

Both Afren and Heritage are independent companies involved in the exploration and production of oil and gas. Afren has an African focus while Heritage is involved in Africa, the Middle East, Russia and South Asia.

Proximagen Neuroscience plc is focused on developing drugs for the treatment of age-related neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

That ends our first look at Lansdowne Partners. As always, we will be continuing our tracking series where we look at the positions that prominent hedge fund managers hold in UK markets. If you've missed some of our previous posts, make sure you check out the holdings of Harbinger Capital Partners, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, Ken Griffin’s Citadel , Louis Bacon's Moore Capital Management and Paul Tudor Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp .

If you're unfamiliar with our new series tracking UK positions, check out our preface here. We have also covered the potential for hedge fund activism in the UK investment trust sector and London based, GLC Ltd.