Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global 13F Filing: First Quarter 2009

This is the 1st Quarter 2009 edition of our ongoing hedge fund portfolio tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out the Hedge Fund 13F filings series preface.

We'll start our Q1 '09 coverage with Viking Global. Andreas Halvorsen is one of the many 'Tiger Cub' fund managers we cover here on the blog. 'Tiger Cubs' are the progeny of legendary investor and hedge fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. Many of the critical members of Tiger started their own funds, and Halvorsen is no different. Halvorsen has taken what he learned/used at Tiger and added his own spice to the value oriented, yet growth at a reasonable price (G.A.R.P.) tolerable investment style. Viking employs a fundamental strategy, using a bottom-up process to pick stocks. In terms of recent performance, They were +0.99% for March, and +9.27% year to date as of that time. We covered Viking and other hedge funds in our March performance update.

Halvorsen attended Williams College and received his MBA from Stanford, while his work history includes stays at Morgan Stanley and Tiger. In Alpha's 2008 hedge fund rankings, Viking was ranked #70 in the world. You can view Viking's most 2008 year end investor letter if you want to look through the eyes of Halvorsen and company.

The following were their long equity, note, and options holdings as of March 31st, 2009 as filed with the SEC. We have not detailed the changes to every single position in this update, but we have covered all the major moves. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted.


Some New Positions (Brand new positions that they initiated in the last quarter):
ACE (ACE)
Alliance Data Systems (ADS)
Career Education (CECO)
Charles River Labs (CRL)
Cognizant (CTSH)
CVS Caremark (CVS)
Danaher (DHR)
Google (GOOG)
Lender Processing Services (LPS)
Oracle (ORCL)
Suntrust Banks (STI)
Teleflex (TFX)
Travelers Companies (UHS)
Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO)
Thoratec (THOR)
Universal Health Services (UHS)
Visa (V)
Walmart (WMT)


Some Increased Positions (A few positions they already owned but added shares to)
Mastercard (MA): Increased by 176%
JPMorgan Chase: Increased by 72%
Invesco (IVZ): Increased by 23%
Qualcomm (QCOM): Increased by 12%


Some Reduced Positions (Some positions they sold some shares of - note not all sales listed)
DaVita (DVA): Reduced by 46%
First Horizon National (FHN): Reduced by 45%
Illumina (ILMN): Reduced by 37.5%
Aon (AOC): Reduced by 34%
Apollo Group (APOL): Reduced by 32%
McKesson (MCK): Reduced by 27%


Removed Positions (Positions they sold out of completely)
Alcon (ACL)
Bank of America (BAC)
Axis Capital (AXS)
BCE (BCE)
ITT Educational (ESI)
Kroger (KR)
ModusLink (MLNK)
Renaissance Holdings (RNR)
St Jude Medical (STJ)
Sherwin Williams (SHW)
Verisign (VRSN)
Vulcan Materials (VMC)


Top 15 Holdings (by % of portfolio)

1. Apollo Group (APOL): 12.67% of portfolio
2. Mastercard (MA): 12.51% of portfolio
3. Invesco (IVZ): 8.88% of portfolio
4. Qualcomm (QCOM): 7.11% of portfolio
5. Google (GOOG): 5.83% of portfolio
6. Visa (V): 5.8% of portfolio
7. Priceline (PCLN): 5.33% of portfolio
8. JPMorganChase (JPM): 4.12% of portfolio
9. NRG Energy (NRG): 3.4% of portfolio
10. Cognizant (CTSH): 3.24% of portfolio
11. Career Education (CECO): 3.13% of portfolio
12. MSCI (MXB): 3% of portfolio
13. DaVita (DVA): 2.7% of portfolio
14. Macrovision (MVSN): 1.96% of portfolio
15. Charles River Labs (CRL): 1.87% of portfolio

From Q3 to Q4 of 2008, Viking had some substantial turnover in their portfolio. And, the most recent quarter is no different. In the first quarter of 2009, they sold completely out of 12 names and then started new positions in 18 other names. Last time around, we focused on Viking's decision to sell out of Visa and instead buy Mastercard. Well, this time around, they bought both. Viking re-bought their Visa position and brought it all the way up to their 6th largest holding. Additionally, they boosted their current Mastercard position by an additional 176%. They clearly have conviction in this payment-processing duopoly. (And, so do many other hedge funds for that matter).

Viking also started a new position in Google (GOOG) and brought it up to their fifth largest holding. That about covers all the major moves in the portfolio (besides the names they sold out of completely). Viking's top position remains Apollo Group (APOL). However, they did sell a substantial part of their position from quarter to quarter.

Assets from the collective holdings reported to the SEC via 13F filing were $3.5 billion last quarter and were $3.57 billion this quarter. This is just one of the 40+ prominent funds that we'll be covering in our hedge fund Q1 2009 portfolio series. Check back each day as we cover new fund portfolios, or get our updates for free via email or for free via RSS Reader.

Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global 13F Filing: Q4 2008

This is the 4th Quarter 2008 edition of our ongoing hedge fund portfolio tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out the Hedge Fund 13F filings preface.

Andreas Halvorsen is one of the many 'Tiger Cub' fund managers we cover here on the blog. 'Tiger Cubs' are the progeny of legendary investor and hedge fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. Many of the critical members of Tiger started their own funds, and Halvorsen is no different. We've already covered one other 'Tiger Cub' portfolios in our hedge fund tracking series: Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital. Although both Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global and Stephen Mandel Jr. of Lone Pine Capital both learned the tricks of the trade under Robertson in their time at Tiger Management, both have taken what they've learned and added their own spice to the value oriented, yet growth at a reasonable price (G.A.R.P.) tolerable investment style. Viking employs a fundamental strategy, using a bottom-up process to pick stocks. Viking Global's Equities III fund was +1% for December and finished the year -1.14% as we noted in our hedge fund 2008 performance numbers. You can view their month by month performance breakdown here.

Halvorsen attended Williams College and received his MBA from Stanford, while his work history includes stays at Morgan Stanley and Tiger. In Alpha's latest hedge fund rankings, Viking was ranked #70 in the world. You can view Viking's most recent year end investor letter, as well as their Q3 2008 investor letter here in .pdf format.

The following were their long equity, note, and options holdings as of December 31st, 2008 as filed with the SEC. We have not detailed the changes to every single position in this update, but we have covered all the major moves. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted.


Some New Positions (Brand new positions that they initiated in the last quarter):
Alcon (ACL)
Axis Capital Holdings (AXS)
Bank of America (BAC)
BCE (BCE)
Illumina (ILMN)
ITT Education (ESI)
JP Morgan Chase (JPM)
Mastercard (MA)
McKesson (MCK)
ModusLink (MLNK)
NRG Energy (NRG)
Renaissance Re (RNR)
Sherwin Williams (SHW)
Vulcan Materials (VMC)


Some Increased Positions (A few positions they already owned but added shares to)
Priceline (PCLN): Increased position by 28.6%
Verisign (VRSN): Increased position by 18.4%
Invesco (IVZ): Increased position by 2.6%


Some Reduced Positions (Some positions they sold some shares of - note not all sales listed)
First Horizon (FHN): Reduced position by 32%
Kroger (KR): Reduced position by 30%
Aon (AOC): Reduced position by 25.5%
Qualcomm (QCOM): Reduced position by 22%
Apollo Group (APOL): Reduced position by 21.9%
Davita (DVA): Reduced position by 10.6%
St Jude (STJ): Reduced position by 7.9%


Removed Positions (Positions they sold out of completely)
Idearc (IDAR)
Monster Worldwide (MWW)
RH Donnelley (RHDC)
Associated Bancorp (ASBC)
Federated Mogul (FDML)
Och Ziff (OZM)
Arkansas Best (ABFS)
Fair Isaac (FIC)
Sina (SINA)
Alexander & Baldwin (AXB)
Jefferies (JEF)
Susquehanna (SUSQ)
Glacier Bancorp (GBCI)
Charles River Labs (CRL)
Whitney Holdings (WTNY)
The Stanley Works (SWK)
National Financial Partners (NFP)
Avalonbay Communities (AVB)
Transocean (RIG)
Herbalife (HLF)
National City (NCC)
Thor (THO)
Humana (HUM)
Expedia (EXPE)
Franklin Resources (BEN)
Autodesk (ADSK)
Coach (COH)
Blackrock (BLK)
Harley Davidson (HOG)
Beckman Coulter (BEC)
Keycorp (KEY)
Alliance Data (ADS)
Quest Diagnostic (DGX)
Mettler Toledo (MTD)
Visa (V)
Tidewater (TDW)
Ace (ACE)


Top 20 Holdings (by % of portfolio)

1. Apollo Group (APOL): 18.58% of portfolio
2. BCE (BCE): 11.21% of portfolio
3. Invesco (IVZ): 7.68% of portfolio
4. ITT Educational (ESI): 6.45% of portfolio
5. Bank of America (BAC): 6.32% of portfolio
6. Qualcomm (QCOM): 5.95% of portfolio
7. Davita (DVA): 5.76% of portfolio
8. Priceline (PCLN): 4.9% of portfolio
9. NRG Energy (NRG): 4.53% of portfolio
10. Mastercard (MA): 3.94% of portfolio
11. MSCI (MXB): 3.38% of portfolio
12. JP Morgan Chase (JPM): 2.9% of portfolio
13. Verisign (VRSN): 2.63% of portfolio
14. First Horizon (FHN): 2.15% of portfolio
15. McKesson (MCK): 2.1% of portfolio
16. Sherwin Williams (SHW): 2.1% of portfolio
17. Illumina (ILMN): 1.7% of portfolio
18. Aon (AOC): 1.63% of portfolio
19. Kroger (KR): 1.57% of portfolio
20. Macrovision (MVSN): 1.4% of portfolio

Viking changed up their portfolio a substantial amount over the last quarter. Take the bottom half of their portfolio from the previous filing, and chop it off. That's essentially what happened if you examine their filings quarter to quarter. And, they came in and replaced that void with a whole new slew of companies. Interesting to see them also basically swap out of Visa in favor of Mastercard. Assets from the collective long US equity, options, and note holdings were $3.5 billion last quarter and were again around $3.5 billion this quarter. This is just one of many funds in our hedge fund portfolio tracking series in which we're tracking 35+ prominent funds. We've already covered Paulson & Co (John Paulson), Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, George Soros, and Bill Ackman's Pershing Square. Look for our continual updates each day over the next few weeks.

Hedge Fund Viking Global Investor Letter

Here's the latest letter from Andreas Halvorsen & Co:

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Finance & Investing Business & Legal career letter

Hedge Fund Tracking: Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global - 13F Filing 3rd Quarter 2008

Next up, we have Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global. This is the 3rd Quarter 2008 edition of our ongoing hedge fund tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out the preface to the series we're doing on Hedge Fund 13F's here. We're aiming to cover 35 or so prominent funds this time around and we'll be releasing the 13f analysis of each individual fund here in the coming weeks. We've already covered Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital,Whitney Tilson's T2 Partners, Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, and John Paulson's Paulson & Co.

Andreas Halvorsen is one of the many 'Tiger Cub' fund managers we cover here on the blog. 'Tiger Cubs' are the progeny of legendary investor and hedge fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. Many of the critical members of Tiger started their own funds, and Halvorsen is no different. We've already covered a few other 'Tiger Cub' portfolios in our hedge fund tracking series, including Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, and John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital. Although both Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global and Stephen Mandel Jr. of Lone Pine Capital both learned the tricks of the trade under Robertson in their time at Tiger Management, both have taken what they've learned and added their own spice to the value oriented, yet growth at a reasonable price (G.A.R.P.) tolerable investment style. Halvorsen attended Williams College and received his MBA from Stanford, while his work history includes stays at Morgan Stanley and Tiger.

Viking employs a fundamental strategy, using a bottom-up process to pick stocks. Viking's Global Equities III Fund was -1.10% for October and is -2.41% ytd. Their Global Equities LP is -3.92% for the year and was down 1.10% in October. Andreas Halvorsen and company seem to be faring alright this year, all things considered. You can view their month by month performance breakdown here. Also, in our October hedge fund performance update, we've listed the performance figures of numerous other funds. In Alpha's latest hedge fund rankings, Viking was ranked #70 in the world. You can view their Q3 investor letter here in .pdf format.

The following were Viking's long equity and options holdings as of September 30th, 2008 as filed with the SEC.


New Positions (Brand new positions that they initiated in the last quarter):
Visa (V)
Verisign (VRSN)
Quest Diagnostics (DGX)
Alliance Data (ADS)
Beckman Coulter (BEC)
Harley Davidson (HOG)
Blackrock (BLK)
Coach (COH)
Autodesk (ADSK)
Franklin Resources (BEN)
Expedia (EXPE)
Thor Industries (THO)
National City (NCC)
Herbalife (HLF)
AvalonBay (AVB)
Stanley Works (SWK)
Whitney Holding (WTNY)
Charles River Labs (CRL)
Glacier Bancorp (GBCI)
Susquehanna bancshares (SUSQ)
Jeffries (JEF)
Alexander Baldwin (AXB)
Sina Corp (SINA)
Fair Isaac (FIC)
Arkansas Best (ABFS)
Associated Banc Corp (ASBC)
Tidewater (TDW)


Added to (Positions they already owned but added shares to)
Mettler Toledo (MTD): Increased by 2282%
Idearc (IAR): Increased by 395%
National Financial (NFP): Increased by 184%
MSCI (MXB): Increased by 82%
Federal Mogul (FDML): Increased by 59%
Donnelley (RHD): Increased by 49%
Monster Worldwide (MNST): Increased by 40%
First Horizon (FHN): Increased by 5%
Humana (HUM): Increased by 2.5%


Some Reduced Positions (Positions they sold some shares of - note not all sales listed)
Transocean (RIG): Sold 89%
Kroger (KR): Sold 79%
AON (AOC): Sold 62%
Apollo Group (APOL): Sold 27%
Invesco (IVZ): Sold 12%
Qualcomm (QCOM): Sold 15%
Davita (DVA): Sold 12%


Removed Positions (Positions they sold out of completely)
Mastercard (MA)
Plains Exploration (PXP)
Viacom (VIA.B)
Weatherford (WFT)
NII Holdings (NIHD)
Prudential (PRU)
Staples (SPLS)
Southwestern Energy (SWN)
Massey Energy (MEE)
Saic (SAI)
IHS (IHS)
Frontier Oil (FTO)
ITT Education (ESI)
Sherwin Williams (SHW)
Hologic (HOLX)
Illumina (ILMN)
Google (GOOG)
American Medical (AMMD)
Delta (DAL)
Mckesson (MCK)
CMGI


Top 20 Holdings (by % of portfolio)

1. Apollo Group (APOL): 19% of portfolio
2. Invesco (IVZ): 11% of portfolio
3. Qualcomm (QCOM): 9% of portfolio
4. Davita (DVA): 7.7% of portfolio
5. MSCI (MXB): 4.7% of portfolio
6. Visa (V): 4% of portfolio
7. Priceline (PCLN): 3.7% of portfolio
8. Verisign (VRSN): 3% of portfolio
9. First Horizon (FHN): 2.9% of portfolio
10. Mettler Toledo (MTD): 2.8% of portfolio
11. Kroger (KR): 2.4% of portfolio
12. Quest Diagnostics (DGX): 2.3% of portfolio
13. AON (AOC): 2.2% of portfolio
14. Alliance Data (ADS): 1.9% of portfolio
15. Keycorp (KEY): 1.8% of portfolio
16. Macrovision Solutions (MVSN): 1.8% of portfolio
17. Beckman Coulter (BEC): 1.7% of portfolio
18. St Jude Medical (STJ): 1.3% of portfolio
19. Harley Davidson (HOG): 1.3% of portfolio
20. Blackrock (BLK): 1.2% of portfolio

Assets from the collective holdings above were $5 billion last quarter and were $3.3 billion this quarter. Its also interesting to note that they effectively swapped out of Mastercard (MA) for their new Visa (V) position. We mention this mainly because many of the 'Tiger Cub' funds have positions in these two names and recently their mentor Julian Robertson was buying them. Interesting to see that Viking prefers one over the other. Please note that we have not detailed every single change to every single position in this update, but we have covered all the major moves. Also, keep in mind that these filings only include long equity and options holdings and do not reflect the cash or short portions of their portfolio. This is the tenth hedge fund we've covered in our 3rd quarter 2008 edition of our hedge fund tracking series in which we're tracking 35+ prominent funds. We've already covered Whitney Tilson's T2 Partners, Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital, John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital, Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital, and John Paulson's Paulson & Co. Overall, its been one of the worst years ever for hedge funds, as we noted in our recent October hedge fund performance update. Thus, the recent moves they've made in their portfolios become all the more interesting given the way the market has played out.

More on Halvorsen & Viking:
- Viking's performance numbers
- Viking's 3rd quarter investor letter (.pdf format)
- Tale of two 'Tiger Cub' hedge fund managers
- Hedge Fund Rankings

A Tale of Two Tiger Cubs

And this is exactly why I love tracking 'offspring' of investing legends like Julian Robertson. Although both Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global and Stephen Mandel Jr. of Lone Pine Capital both learned the tricks of the trade under Robertson in their time at Tiger Management, both have taken what they've learned and added their own spice to the value oriented, yet growth at a reasonable price (G.A.R.P.) tolerable investment style.

Although Viking Global and Lone Pine come from the same school of thought, their returns are polar opposite year to date. So far, Viking's Global Equities III Fund is up 8.45% year to date. While, on the other hand, Lone Pine's Lone Cedar Fund is -5.38% year to date. Oh how the slightest tweaks in philosophy make a difference. While both are still outperforming the S&P on a relative basis, Lone Pine being down for the year is slightly surprising given the amazing run they had last year, netting 44% in 2007. Has Mandel's momentum run out? Its still much too early to tell.

Many 'Tiger Cub' funds often have similar positions in their portfolio, which is understandable given their similar general investment philosophies. What sets them apart from each other though, are the positions they take that are dissimilar from their former Tiger Management peers. And, in a few weeks when the next round of SEC 13F filings are released, we'll be able to see just where Viking differed from Lone Pine in their approach.

--

Courtesy of the NY Post, we see just how some big hedge funds are faring year to date. As mentioned in previous posts, Harbinger Capital is tearing it up, as is John Paulson again (he tore it up last year as well due to his bets against the subprime mess). Some notable surprises on the list are Jeffrey Gendell's Tontine Associates poor performance, -17% year to date. It should be noted though, that he is more or less a value player, and we all know value is dead in 2008 (ha!). Also notable is Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital -8.96% year to date. Bret is the brother of Timothy Barakett (manager of Atticus Capital), whom I track on the blog. I'll take a closer look at both of their 13f's this next go-round to see how similar/dissimilar the brothers are in their investment philosophies.

(click to enlarge)

Hedge Fund Activity / 13F

(Just FYI: This post marks the first of a series I will be doing this week that details what the "smart money" has been up to lately.)

Four times a year, hedge funds & asset managers with > $100 million AUM (assets under management) are required to report to the SEC their holdings from the previous quarter. I check these 13F filings quarterly just to get a sense as to where these funds are putting their money sector wise. If you just sit down and do some simple number crunching between last quarter's 13F and this quarter's 13F, you can see exactly where these funds have been moving their money.

Now, these 13F's should be treated as a lagging indicator simply because the 13F's that were just released May 15th 2008 show the funds' holdings as of March 31st 2008. So, in the past month and a half, they could have completely changed their portfolio. But, at the same time, its easy to see which sectors they are flocking to.

I like to specifically follow value based hedge funds in the hope that they won't experience ridiculously high turnover and thus allowing me to track their sector rotations. Specifically, I follow the Tiger Cubs (otherwise known as the proteges of former Tiger Management legend Julian Robertson). Many of these former proteges/right hand men have started their own funds and here are the ones I've been following:

- Blue Ridge Capital (John Griffin)
- Lone Pine Capital (Steve Mandel)
- Maverick Capital (Lee Ainslie)
- Viking Global (Andreas Halvorsen)

Additionally, I also like to follow the Commodities Corporation "offspring" which typically employ a global macro strategy.

- Tudor Investment Corp (Paul Tudor Jones)
- Moore Capital (Louis Bacon)
- Caxton Associates (Bruce Kovner)

So, I follow a core of value funds in depth and then I also follow a core of global macro funds in depth. Over the next week, I will be going into detail as to what those specific funds were up to this past quarter. Additionally, I like to follow other "whales" and funds that are not necessarily value based, but are still top performers on Wall Street. I won't be going into detail on some of these names, but I will provide some very useful links that give a broad overview of what some of these whales have been buying/selling. Because, after all, you've got to at least keep tabs on what these guys are doing:

- Warren Buffett (obviously)
- Carl Icahn (rabblerousing at its best)
- RBS Partners (Eddie Lampert)

Then, of course, there are some just straight up beastly funds which you have to keep an eye on due to their awesome returns over the years:

- Atticus Capital (Timothy Barakett)
- BP Capital (Boone Pickens)
- Greenlight Capital (David Einhorn)
- Paulson & Co (John Paulson)
- D.E. Shaw & Co (David E. Shaw)
- Jana Partners (Barry Rosenstein)

And, lastly, a few deep value & activist funds.

- Third Point (Daniel Loeb)
- Pershing Square (Bill Ackman)
- Okumus Capital (Ahmet Okumus)
- T2 Partners (Whitney Tilson)
- Tontine Partners (Jeffrey Gendell)

So, over the coming week I'll touch on some important position moves some of these funds/whales have made (new positions, removed positions, etc). And, specifically, I'll be looking in depth at some of my favorite funds on a quarter by quarter comparison. Here are the links to my in-depth analyses of said funds.

- Blue Ridge Capital
- Lone Pine Capital
- Maverick Capital
- BP Capital
- Atticus Capital