London-based mondo-CTA Winton Capital Management boosted its U.S. equity portfolio by 30 percent, to $14.4 billion at the end of the first quarter, according to a new regulatory filing. As of February 2014 the firm had $24 billion in total assets under management. It is not surprising to see such a large stock portfolio at Winton. It has been one of the few commodity trading advisors to sidestep the recent string of yearly losses suffered by many of its peers. CTA’s are in the business of riding trends in the markets, and Winton made a big bet on a trend that kept on giving over the last few years: the rising U.S. stock market. The well diversified equities portfolio has some 646 individual positions.
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Lawrence Seidman of Seidman & Associates, the activist fund manager who specializes in small banks, filed his first new 13D in more than seven months. The Parsippany, New Jersey investor disclosed he owns 7.76 percent of Cheviot Financial Group, a Cheviot, Ohio bank holding company with 12 full-service offices and a market capitalization of just $72 million. In the filing, Seidman warns the bank that when he’s taken on targets in the past, he has been known to nominate individuals to the board and engage in proxy contests. He adds that he has had several conversations with Cheviot’s management and plans to continue to speak with them about ways to maximize shareholder value. The secretive, otherwise opaque investor has been targeting undervalued banks and thrifts, normally small community banks, since 1983. Generally, he goes after targets that are selling below tangible book value and tries to encourage them to either sell to another institution or at least repurchase their shares. Going back to 1995, Seidman has been involved in at least 35 activist situations with small banks, according to regulatory filings. He has initiated or been a part of about a dozen proxy fights. More than 20 of the bank companies were acquired by another institution after Seidman took a position. He has also sat on the board of directors of at least six of the companies, while associates of his sat on the boards of a number of other companies.
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Horseman Global Fund’s sizable net short position continues to serve it well. The London-based fund headed by Russell Clark is up 9.05 percent through April despite a loss of nearly 0.70 percent last month.
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Robert Karr’s Joho Capital, which fully redeemed its fund on March 31, lost 4.5 percent in its final quarter of its existence as a hedge fund. Joho was hurt by declines in China and Japan, and is converting to a family office.
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Speaking of family office conversions, Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management, the new incarnation of SAC Capital Advisors, disclosed it owns nearly 2.1 million shares, or 5.2 percent, of Sarepta Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company. At the end of 2013, SAC Capital reported a position of nearly 712,000 shares. Point72 also disclosed that it owns 2.2 million shares, or 6 percent of Trulia, an online residential real estate site. SAC owned nearly 1.8 million shares at year-end. Both stakes were filed as passive investments
