market folly

Fresh off the presses, Seth Klarman's hedge fund Baupost Group will be purchasing additional shares in Facet Biotech Corporation (FACT). Facet has announced that they've agreed to amend their Rights Agreement to let the purchase go through. Baupost owned 3,506,875 shares as of December 16th, a 14% stake in the company. The new provisions will allow Baupost to increase their stake to 15-20% of the company.

However, there is a catch. Baupost must vote any shares in excess of a 15% stake in conjunction with the majority shareholders vote or with the recommendations of Facet's board. This becomes interesting because as many of you already know, Biogen Idec (BIIB) is trying to close its all cash tender offer of $17.50 per share for Facet. And the drama heightens when we see that Baupost has told Facet that they have no intentions of tendering their shares into Biogen's offer. Things are starting to get interesting as Facet currently trades around $16.45, well below Biogen's $17.50 offer price. With these recent developments, it looks like this process has been drawn out further. Head over to Tickerspy to view Baupost Group's portfolio to see what else they're investing in.

In terms of other recent activity, Klarman was recently selling more Syneron Medical (ELOS). Additionally, in November we saw in November they started a new stake in Enzon Pharmaceuticals. Klarman received his MBA from Harvard and then went on to work for Baupost at age 25. Nowadays, it's his show to run. Baupost is one of the select few funds we have included in our Market Folly custom portfolio that is seeing over 26% annualized returns by combining 3 hedge fund portfolios into a cohesive whole. (Head over to Alphaclone to see the hedge fund portfolio replication in action).

Taken from Google Finance, "Facet Biotech is a biotechnology company. The Company is engaged in identifying and developing oncology therapeutics. It has four antibodies in the clinic for oncology and immunologic disease indications, of which two are in phase II and two in phase I. The Company has several investigational compounds in various stages of development for the treatment of cancer and immunologic diseases, three of which it is developing with collaboration partners: two with Biogen Idec and one with BMS."

For more resources on Klarman and Baupost Group, check out Klarman's interview from the annual Graham & Dodd breakfast, some additional thoughts from Seth Klarman, and another interview with Seth Klarman.