Andreas Halvorsen is a founding partner of Viking Global Investors LP and currently serves as its CIO. Viking manages two hedge funds invested in equities worldwide.
Before founding Viking, Halvorsen served Tiger Management LLC as senior managing director and the director of equities. He also worked for Morgan Stanley.
Since his firm's inception, Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global Equities III fund has gained 22% on average per year. Unfortunately ,he had to face certain headwinds, particularly between 2001 and 2008, when his portfolio was down about 12%. He owns 47 stocks with a total value of $5.7 billion.
Viking analysts talk about their strategy: “Our sound analysis and disciplined valuation over time yield a diversified portfolio of longs and shorts whose stock price developments will deviate from each other and provide a profitable spread.” “When we had strong conviction in an investment and scaled it, our success rate hiked – in other words, our high conviction has been correlated with improved odds of being right.”
I found some stocks interesting to do further research considering that they passed Viking research qualifications and offer potential growth. Viking is long Internet China growth.
SINA Corporation (SINA, Financial): Halvorsen INITIATED a position in SINA last quarter.
Sina is a leading Internet media company in China whose target involves well-educated and wealthy user groups. Its customer base has been created thanks to its reputation as a reliable online news provider. It is an ideal venue for advertisers. 70% of its revenue comes from online advertising.
Sina is a highly popular portal in China. In terms of user traffic in the country, it occupies the fourth position. Generally speaking, Sina has an established position as an online ad platform.
The company is making every effort to continue developing. For instance, it built a successful blog business by profiting from its strong connections with celebrities, and it expects to duplicate the model by using the Twitter-like microblog business.
St Jude Medical Inc. (STJ, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 12.8%
St. Jude Medical manufactures cardiovascular medical devices. STJ operates in the U.S. and abroad. Foreign sales account for more than 50% of the company's total sales.
Fortunately, STJ’s Angio-Seal device still maintains its leadership in the vascular closure market worth about $550 million. In addition, STJ holds a minority stake in a new wireless monitoring technology for heart failure patients that could translate into a feeder stream of eventual CRM patients.
Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (CRL, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 42%
CRL is a leading provider of drug discovery and development services with different segments such as the research models and services segment. CRL represents 50% of the market worldwide and is the leading provider of animal models for laboratory testing.
CRL’s research models are widely used by drug developers and are considered the gold standard for laboratory testing.
Charles River’s RMS franchise provides the firm with numerous competitive advantages, including its accumulated expertise in biosecurity, breeding, and distribution, and its animal service offerings, which create switching costs for clients.
Charles River’s PCS segment will be able to generate double-digit growth driven by increased outsourcing penetration and large drug companies’ tendency to work with only a select group of preferred providers. Last but not least, especially for investors, CRL have an attractive price and the company has launched a buyback program representing an attractive use of capital.
Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (HIG, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 122%
Hartford Financial Services offers a wide range of property-casualty, life insurance, annuity and mutual fund services individuals and corporations.
HIG has been able to recover from the loss in its equity cushion thanks to the recovery of the market after the severe financial crisis.
Speaking about last quarter results, core earnings were $33 million. Moreover, Hartford has established a vast distribution network enabling it to benefit from economies of scale. One advantage that the company has is that it can profit from the low costs in products and services. This makes it stand better than its rivals. Another important factor is HIG geographical and product diversity that gives it a chance towards cross-selling opportunities.
Baidu Inc. (BIDU, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 37|%
Baidu is the leading Chinese-language Internet-search provider serving small and medium businesses. It provides online advertising, which has become its source of income.
Baidu.com ranks as the most popular website in China and among the top 10 in the world based on site traffic.
Baidu is able to clearly understand Internet users’ preferences to make its services more popular. In addition, Baidu is making aggressive marketing and is investing hard to expand its network of thousands of agents. The idea is to arrive at more small business owners across the country. Although its core business is paid search, Baidu has made attempts in brand advertising.
Before founding Viking, Halvorsen served Tiger Management LLC as senior managing director and the director of equities. He also worked for Morgan Stanley.
Since his firm's inception, Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global Equities III fund has gained 22% on average per year. Unfortunately ,he had to face certain headwinds, particularly between 2001 and 2008, when his portfolio was down about 12%. He owns 47 stocks with a total value of $5.7 billion.
Viking analysts talk about their strategy: “Our sound analysis and disciplined valuation over time yield a diversified portfolio of longs and shorts whose stock price developments will deviate from each other and provide a profitable spread.” “When we had strong conviction in an investment and scaled it, our success rate hiked – in other words, our high conviction has been correlated with improved odds of being right.”
I found some stocks interesting to do further research considering that they passed Viking research qualifications and offer potential growth. Viking is long Internet China growth.
SINA Corporation (SINA, Financial): Halvorsen INITIATED a position in SINA last quarter.
Sina is a leading Internet media company in China whose target involves well-educated and wealthy user groups. Its customer base has been created thanks to its reputation as a reliable online news provider. It is an ideal venue for advertisers. 70% of its revenue comes from online advertising.
Sina is a highly popular portal in China. In terms of user traffic in the country, it occupies the fourth position. Generally speaking, Sina has an established position as an online ad platform.
The company is making every effort to continue developing. For instance, it built a successful blog business by profiting from its strong connections with celebrities, and it expects to duplicate the model by using the Twitter-like microblog business.
St Jude Medical Inc. (STJ, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 12.8%
St. Jude Medical manufactures cardiovascular medical devices. STJ operates in the U.S. and abroad. Foreign sales account for more than 50% of the company's total sales.
Fortunately, STJ’s Angio-Seal device still maintains its leadership in the vascular closure market worth about $550 million. In addition, STJ holds a minority stake in a new wireless monitoring technology for heart failure patients that could translate into a feeder stream of eventual CRM patients.
Charles River Laboratories International Inc. (CRL, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 42%
CRL is a leading provider of drug discovery and development services with different segments such as the research models and services segment. CRL represents 50% of the market worldwide and is the leading provider of animal models for laboratory testing.
CRL’s research models are widely used by drug developers and are considered the gold standard for laboratory testing.
Charles River’s RMS franchise provides the firm with numerous competitive advantages, including its accumulated expertise in biosecurity, breeding, and distribution, and its animal service offerings, which create switching costs for clients.
Charles River’s PCS segment will be able to generate double-digit growth driven by increased outsourcing penetration and large drug companies’ tendency to work with only a select group of preferred providers. Last but not least, especially for investors, CRL have an attractive price and the company has launched a buyback program representing an attractive use of capital.
Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. (HIG, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 122%
Hartford Financial Services offers a wide range of property-casualty, life insurance, annuity and mutual fund services individuals and corporations.
HIG has been able to recover from the loss in its equity cushion thanks to the recovery of the market after the severe financial crisis.
Speaking about last quarter results, core earnings were $33 million. Moreover, Hartford has established a vast distribution network enabling it to benefit from economies of scale. One advantage that the company has is that it can profit from the low costs in products and services. This makes it stand better than its rivals. Another important factor is HIG geographical and product diversity that gives it a chance towards cross-selling opportunities.
Baidu Inc. (BIDU, Financial): Halvorsen INCREASED his position 37|%
Baidu is the leading Chinese-language Internet-search provider serving small and medium businesses. It provides online advertising, which has become its source of income.
Baidu.com ranks as the most popular website in China and among the top 10 in the world based on site traffic.
Baidu is able to clearly understand Internet users’ preferences to make its services more popular. In addition, Baidu is making aggressive marketing and is investing hard to expand its network of thousands of agents. The idea is to arrive at more small business owners across the country. Although its core business is paid search, Baidu has made attempts in brand advertising.
