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Morning Brief: Steve Mandel's Lone Pine Makes Big Bet on Facebook
The Tiger Cub ratcheted up his stake in the social media pioneer by a hefty 75 percent.
Stephen Mandel Jr.’s Lone Pine Capital doubled down on Facebook in the first quarter. The Tiger Cub boosted his stake in the embattled social media giant by 75 percent during the period. As a result, the stock is now the hedge fund firm’s largest U.S. long position. It was Lone Pine’s tenth-largest position at year-end. Facebook’s stock took a big hit in mid-March, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal raised questions about how Facebook handles user data. Lone Pine also boosted its stake in Microsoft in the first quarter. It is now Lone Pine’s fourth-largest long position, compared with eighth largest in the previous period.
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David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management established a new stake of nearly 1.3 million shares in LAM Research, making the chip equipment maker the eclectic investor’s eighth largest U.S. long position. Tepper also boosted his stake in his largest position, Micron Technology, by 28 percent. On the other hand, the hedge fund liquidated its sizable stake in the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Fund, an exchange-traded fund that invests in emerging markets.
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Glade Brook Capital Management threw in the towel on Snap. In recent quarters the parent of Snap Chat was the only publicly traded stock held by the firm headed by Paul Hudson, who morphed to become more of a venture capital investor. It had invested in Snap when it was still a private company. The stock, however, has plummeted to a recent $10.65 from its IPO price of $17.
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Corvex Management established a stake of about 821,000 shares in ServiceNow, making the cloud computing company the second-largest long holding of the activist hedge fund headed by Keith Meister.
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Cliff Robbins’ Blue Harbour Group took a sizable stake in cybersecurity specialist Fortinet. It is now the activist’s seventh-largest long. On the other hand, activist hedge fund firm Starboard Value liquidated its entire stake in Fortinet.
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Starboard Value once again reduced its stake in Depomed and now owns just a few thousand shares, according to a new revised 13D filing.