Guru Paul Singer (Trades, Portfolio) is an activist investor worth nearly $2 billion. In 1977, he founded Elliot Management, which manages more than $24 billion in assets.
More than one-third of Elliot Management’s portfolio is in oil and gas companies. Singer has several of those in his personal portfolio, too, but most of the stakes he increased in the first quarter are in other sectors, primarily telecommunications.
Singer nearly tripled his stake in Informatica Corp (INFA, Financial), a Redwood City, California-based software development company in which Singer initially invested in the fourth quarter of 2014. Singer’s original stake was a little more than 2 million shares. In the first quarter of 2015, he bought nearly 4 million more, paying an average price of $41.6 per share. The transaction had a 2.13% impact on his portfolio.
Informatica has a market cap of $5.05 billion and an enterprise value of $4.55 billion. It has a P/E of 48.1, a Price/Book of 4.9 and a Price/Sales of 5.0. Meridian Funds (Trades, Portfolio), George Soros (Trades, Portfolio), Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio) and Julian Robertson (Trades, Portfolio) all have shares of Informatica in their portfolios.
The purchase propelled Informatica into Singer’s Top 20 stakes (by volume).
Singer more than quadrupled his stake in Tim Participacoes SA (TSU, Financial), a Brazilian subsidiary of Italian telecommunications company Telecom Italia Mobile. Singer also made his initial investment in that company in the fourth quarter of 2014, buying 1.5 million shares. In the first quarter of 2015, he bought 6,943,090 shares for an average price of $20.85 per share, which is more than 12% less than he paid per share for his original stake. The addition had a 1.42% impact on Singer’s portfolio.
Tim Participacoes has a market cap of $7.59 billion and an enterprise value of $44.01 billion. It has a P/E of 20.2, a Price/Book of 1.4 and a Price/Sales of 1.2. Charles Brandes (Trades, Portfolio) and John Paulson (Trades, Portfolio) have shares of Tim Participacoes in their portfolios.
With the purchase, Tim Participacoes is the 10th-largest stake in Singer’s portfolio.
Family Dollar Stores Inc. (FDO, Financial), a North Carolina-based variety store chain, is the 11th-largest stake in Singer’s portfolio after the guru added 134,500 shares to his holding in the first quarter. By comparison, that is a longer-term stake for Singer; he made his initial investment in FDO in the third quarter of 2014. He paid an average price of $78.03 per share in the first quarter, which is nearly 6% higher than he paid for the shares in his original stake but $0.45 lower than he paid for additional shares in the fourth quarter.
The transaction had a 0.13% impact on Singer’s portfolio.
Family Dollar Stores has a market cap of $8.99 billion and an enterprise value of $9.41 billion. It has a P/E of 38.6, a Price/Book of 5.1 and a Price/Sales of 0.8. George Soros (Trades, Portfolio), First Eagle Investment (Trades, Portfolio)and Mario Gabelli (Trades, Portfolio) have shares of Family Dollar Stores in their portfolios. Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio) and John Paulson (Trades, Portfolio) sold their stakes in the company in the first quarter.
Singer added 2,192,600 shares to his existing stake in Oi SA (OIBRC, Financial), the largest telecommunications company in Brazil and South America in both subscribers and revenue. Singer paid an average price of $2.28 per share as he raised his stake to 9,498,224 shares, making it the eighth-largest in his portfolio.
Oi SA has a market cap of $1.45 billion and an enterprise value of $13.88 billion. It has a Price/Book of 0.2 and a Price/Sales of 0.1.
Singer also added to existing stakes in Whiting Petroleum Corp (WLL, Financial) and Cormedix Inc (CRMD, Financial) in the first quarter.
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