What a difference a month made for Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital Management.
The firm's Glenview Capital Partners fund surged 17.1 percent in January, erasing last year’s decline, according to hedge fund data tracked by HSBC. It was the firm’s best monthly performance in its 18-year history.
Last year the fund lost more than 16 percent, with most of the losses in December, according to HSBC data. Many stock-oriented hedge funds suffered sharp declines amid a broad market selloff in December — and then rebounded in January.
Glenview declined to comment.
The firm's investors have seen this type of volatility before. Glenview's fund lost more than 18 percent in 2015 and another 2.7 percent in 2016, before surging more than 23 percent in 2017, according to the hedge fund data tracked by HSBC.
About half of the hedge fund firm’s assets were allocated to health care stocks at the end of the third quarter, including seven of its 10 largest positions, according to Glenview's most recent 13F filing. The next deadline for filing quarterly U.S. stock positions with regulators is February 14.
An analysis of Glenview’s holdings indicates it benefited last month from four different sources: mergers and acquisitions, activists, a rebound in stocks, and the firm's value plays.
For example, Fiserv agreed in January to acquire electronic commerce and payments giant First Data, Glenview’s ninth largest long at the end of the third quarter. As a result, shares of First Data surged about 46 percent last month. Glenview is First Data's third largest shareholder.
Shares of eBay, Glenview's fifteenth largest long position, soared about 20 percent in January. The stock rose after activist hedge fund manager Elliott Management Corp. said January 22 that it owned more than 4 percent of the company and was urging it to consider selling or spinning off business units. The Wall Street Journal reported the same day that another eBay stakeholder, Starboard Value, was similarly talking to the company about a possible spinoff or sale of its businesses.
Glenview also benefited from the rebound in several stocks that had fallen sharply in December.
For example, drug distributor McKesson Corp., its fifth largest long, surged 16 percent in January, after dropping 11 percent in December.
HCA Healthcare, an operator of hospitals, rose 12 percent in January, after declining 13.6 percent in December. HCA was Glenview’s seventh largest long at the end of the third quarter.
IQVIA Holdings, the hedge fund’s fourth largest long, rose 11 percent in January, after shares of the health care information company dropped about 7 percent in December.
And finally, several of its value plays surged in January, including Meritor, a supplier of commercial vehicle parts such as brakes and axles. Shares of Meritor soared 22 percent last month. At the end of the third quarter, Glenview was the company's second largest shareholder.
