Next up, we have Andreas Halvorsen's Viking Global. This is the 3rd Quarter 2008 edition of our ongoing hedge fund tracking series. Before reading this update, make sure you check out the preface to the series we're doing on Hedge Fund 13F's here. We're aiming to cover 35 or so prominent funds this time around and we'll be releasing the 13f analysis of each individual fund here in the coming weeks. We've already covered Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital,Whitney Tilson's T2 Partners, Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, and John Paulson's Paulson & Co.
Andreas Halvorsen is one of the many 'Tiger Cub' fund managers we cover here on the blog. 'Tiger Cubs' are the progeny of legendary investor and hedge fund manager Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. Many of the critical members of Tiger started their own funds, and Halvorsen is no different. We've already covered a few other 'Tiger Cub' portfolios in our hedge fund tracking series, including Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, and John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital. Although both Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global and Stephen Mandel Jr. of Lone Pine Capital both learned the tricks of the trade under Robertson in their time at Tiger Management, both have taken what they've learned and added their own spice to the value oriented, yet growth at a reasonable price (G.A.R.P.) tolerable investment style. Halvorsen attended Williams College and received his MBA from Stanford, while his work history includes stays at Morgan Stanley and Tiger.
Viking employs a fundamental strategy, using a bottom-up process to pick stocks. Viking's Global Equities III Fund was -1.10% for October and is -2.41% ytd. Their Global Equities LP is -3.92% for the year and was down 1.10% in October. Andreas Halvorsen and company seem to be faring alright this year, all things considered. You can view their month by month performance breakdown here. Also, in our October hedge fund performance update, we've listed the performance figures of numerous other funds. In Alpha's latest hedge fund rankings, Viking was ranked #70 in the world. You can view their Q3 investor letter here in .pdf format.
The following were Viking's long equity and options holdings as of September 30th, 2008 as filed with the SEC.
New Positions (Brand new positions that they initiated in the last quarter):
Visa (V)
Verisign (VRSN)
Quest Diagnostics (DGX)
Alliance Data (ADS)
Beckman Coulter (BEC)
Harley Davidson (HOG)
Blackrock (BLK)
Coach (COH)
Autodesk (ADSK)
Franklin Resources (BEN)
Expedia (EXPE)
Thor Industries (THO)
National City (NCC)
Herbalife (HLF)
AvalonBay (AVB)
Stanley Works (SWK)
Whitney Holding (WTNY)
Charles River Labs (CRL)
Glacier Bancorp (GBCI)
Susquehanna bancshares (SUSQ)
Jeffries (JEF)
Alexander Baldwin (AXB)
Sina Corp (SINA)
Fair Isaac (FIC)
Arkansas Best (ABFS)
Associated Banc Corp (ASBC)
Tidewater (TDW)
Added to (Positions they already owned but added shares to)
Mettler Toledo (MTD): Increased by 2282%
Idearc (IAR): Increased by 395%
National Financial (NFP): Increased by 184%
MSCI (MXB): Increased by 82%
Federal Mogul (FDML): Increased by 59%
Donnelley (RHD): Increased by 49%
Monster Worldwide (MNST): Increased by 40%
First Horizon (FHN): Increased by 5%
Humana (HUM): Increased by 2.5%
Some Reduced Positions (Positions they sold some shares of - note not all sales listed)
Transocean (RIG): Sold 89%
Kroger (KR): Sold 79%
AON (AOC): Sold 62%
Apollo Group (APOL): Sold 27%
Invesco (IVZ): Sold 12%
Qualcomm (QCOM): Sold 15%
Davita (DVA): Sold 12%
Removed Positions (Positions they sold out of completely)
Mastercard (MA)
Plains Exploration (PXP)
Viacom (VIA.B)
Weatherford (WFT)
NII Holdings (NIHD)
Prudential (PRU)
Staples (SPLS)
Southwestern Energy (SWN)
Massey Energy (MEE)
Saic (SAI)
IHS (IHS)
Frontier Oil (FTO)
ITT Education (ESI)
Sherwin Williams (SHW)
Hologic (HOLX)
Illumina (ILMN)
Google (GOOG)
American Medical (AMMD)
Delta (DAL)
Mckesson (MCK)
CMGI
Top 20 Holdings (by % of portfolio)
- Apollo Group (APOL): 19% of portfolio
- Invesco (IVZ): 11% of portfolio
- Qualcomm (QCOM): 9% of portfolio
- Davita (DVA): 7.7% of portfolio
- MSCI (MXB): 4.7% of portfolio
- Visa (V): 4% of portfolio
- Priceline (PCLN): 3.7% of portfolio
- Verisign (VRSN): 3% of portfolio
- First Horizon (FHN): 2.9% of portfolio
- Mettler Toledo (MTD): 2.8% of portfolio
- Kroger (KR): 2.4% of portfolio
- Quest Diagnostics (DGX): 2.3% of portfolio
- AON (AOC): 2.2% of portfolio
- Alliance Data (ADS): 1.9% of portfolio
- Keycorp (KEY): 1.8% of portfolio
- Macrovision Solutions (MVSN): 1.8% of portfolio
- Beckman Coulter (BEC): 1.7% of portfolio
- St Jude Medical (STJ): 1.3% of portfolio
- Harley Davidson (HOG): 1.3% of portfolio
- Blackrock (BLK): 1.2% of portfolio
Assets from the collective holdings above were $5 billion last quarter and were $3.3 billion this quarter. Its also interesting to note that they effectively swapped out of Mastercard (MA) for their new Visa (V) position. We mention this mainly because many of the 'Tiger Cub' funds have positions in these two names and recently their mentor Julian Robertson was buying them. Interesting to see that Viking prefers one over the other. Please note that we have not detailed every single change to every single position in this update, but we have covered all the major moves. Also, keep in mind that these filings only include long equity and options holdings and do not reflect the cash or short portions of their portfolio. This is the tenth hedge fund we've covered in our 3rd quarter 2008 edition of our hedge fund tracking series in which we're tracking 35+ prominent funds. We've already covered Whitney Tilson's T2 Partners, Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, Timothy Barakett's Atticus Capital, John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital, Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital, and John Paulson's Paulson & Co. Overall, its been one of the worst years ever for hedge funds, as we noted in our recent October hedge fund performance update. Thus, the recent moves they've made in their portfolios become all the more interesting given the way the market has played out.
More on Halvorsen & Viking:
- Viking's performance numbers
- Viking's 3rd quarter investor letter (.pdf format)
- Tale of two 'Tiger Cub' hedge fund managers
- Hedge Fund Rankings
