Paul Singer (Trades, Portfolio) of Elliott Management acquired 18 new holdings in the second quarter. His three largest buys were Monsanto Co. (MON, Financial), LifeLock Inc. (LOCK, Financial) and Imperva Inc. (IMPV, Financial).
Singer founded Elliott Management in 1977. He is known for taking an activist role in underperforming companies and buying sovereign debt at a discount. He has done this in Peru, Argentina and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Monsanto
In Monsanto, Singer purchased 1,361,453 shares for an average price of $99.06 per share. The transaction had an impact of 1.24% on the portfolio.
Monsanto provides agricultural products to farmers. They seek solutions to improve farmer productivity through their seeds, biotechnology traits, herbicides and precision agriculture products. The company was incorporated in Delaware in February 2000 as a subsidiary of Pharmacia Corporation. It is headquartered in St. Louis.
The company has a market cap of $48.6 billion with an enterprise value of $56.1 billion. It has a price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 43.34 with a forward P/E of 22.2. It has a price-book (P/B) ratio of 9.14 and a price-sales (P/S) ratio of 3.6.
GuruFocus ranked its financial strength 5 of 10. Monsanto’s cash to debt ratio is 0.12, below the industry median of 0.58. Its Piotroski F-Score is 4, indicating a stable financial condition. Its Altman Z-Score is 3.7, placing it in the safe zone.
GuruFocus ranked Monsanto’s profitability and growth 8 of 10. Its operating margin is 15.6%, and its net margin is 7.7%. Its return on equity (ROE) is 18.3%, and its return on assets (ROA) is 4.9%.
LifeLock
In LifeLock, Singer purchased 7.15 million shares for an average price of $13.08 per share. The transaction had an impact of 0.99% on the portfolio.
LifeLock provides proactive identity theft protection to consumers and identity risk assessment and fraud protection services to enterprises. The company was incorporated in Delaware in April 2005 and is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.
The company has a market cap of $1.6 billion and an enterprise value of $1.4 billion. It has a forward P/E of 22.6, a P/B of 7.3 and a P/S of 2.5.
GuruFocus ranked its financial strength 6 of 10. LifeLock’s Piotroski F-Score is 4, indicating a stable financial condition. Its Altman Z-Score is 2.73, placing it in the grey zone. The company has no debt, ranking it above 78% of the companies in its industry.
GuruFocus ranked its profitability and growth 3 of 10. Monsanto’s operating margin is -16.1% and its net margin is -9.7%. It has a ROE of -21.3% and a ROA of -10.3%.
Imperva
In Imperva, Singer purchased 2,323,527 shares for an average price of $41.97 per share. The transaction had an impact of 0.88% on the portfolio.
Imperva provides cyber security solutions that protect business-critical data and applications in the cloud or on premises. It was incorporated in Delaware in April 2002 and is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California.
The company has a market cap of $1.5 billion with an enterprise value of $1.3 billion. It has a P/B of 6.8 and a P/S of 5.7.
GuruFocus ranked its financial strength 9 of 10. Imperva’s Piotroski F-Score is 5, indicating a stable financial condition. Its Altman Z-Score is 5.85, placing it in the safe zone. Imperva has no debt, ranking it above 80% of companies in the industry.
GuruFocus ranked its profitability and growth 3 of 10. Imperva’s operating margin is -23.2% and its net margin is -23.7%. It has a ROE of -26.4% and a ROA of -16.13%.
Disclosure: I do not own stock in any companies mentioned in the article.
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