(This post is part of our series on tracking hedge fund portfolios. If you're unfamiliar with tracking investments they disclose via SEC filings, check out our series preface on hedge fund 13F filings.)
Next up is Ricky Sandler's hedge fund Eminence Capital. Prior to Eminence, Sandler started his career as a research analyst for Mark Asset Management and then went on to start Fusion Partners at the age of 25 with Wayne Cooperman. As their investment styles started to differ, Sandler went on to start his new hedge fund. Sandler employs a 'quality value' approach to running his portfolio, spending equal time on both the long and short sides of his portfolio. In the past, he has said they employ gross leverage and are typically around 120% long and 70% short. Sandler attended the University of Wisconsin and holds a CFA designation. You can find a more in-depth look at Sandler and his investment process at the bottom of the article.
The positions listed below were Eminence's long equity, note, and options holdings as of December 31st, 2009 as filed with the SEC. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted.
Brand New Positions
Becton Dickinson (BDX)
Accenture (ACN)
Carnival (CCL)
Baxter (BAX)
Northrop Grumman (NOC)
Fidelity National Information (FIS)
Henry Schein (HSIC)
Burger King (BKC)
Autodesk (ADSK)
Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI)
Talecris (TLCR)
Raytheon (RTN)
Walgreen (WAG)
Chipotle (CMG)
Increased Positions
Hasbro (HAS): Increased position by 1,342%
Goldman Sachs (GS): Increased by 349%
Lowes (LOW): Increased by 161.3%
Equifax (EFX): Increased by 107.4%
US Bancorp (USB): Increased by 105.6%
Qualcomm (QCOM): Increased by 98.5%
JPMorgan Chase (JPM): Increased by 96.9%
Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO): Increased by 59.2%
Lockheed Martin (LMT): Increased by 57.4%
Ebay (EBAY): Increased by 38.7%
Abbott Laboratories (ABT): Increased by 29%
Walmart (WMT): Increased by 27.9%
Fiserv (FISV): Increased by 26.3%
Mastercard (MA): Increased by 19.4%
Apple (AAPL): Increased by 16.8%
Reduced Positions
Cognizant Technology (CTSH): Reduced position by 61.8%
Cisco Systems (CSCO): Reduced by 28%
Google (GOOG): Reduced by 24.6%
Removed Positions (Sold out completely):
Monsanto (MON)
Cintas (CTAS)
Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF)
Morgan Stanley (MS)
Top 15 Holdings by percentage of assets reported on 13F filing
- Oracle (ORCL): 5.63%
- Abbott Laboratories (ABT): 4.92%
- Apple (AAPL): 4.24%
- Lockheed Martin (LMT): 4.21%
- Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO): 3.46%
- Walmart (WMT): 3.33%
- US Bancorp (USB): 3.15%
- Fiserv (FISV): 3.15%
- JPMorgan Chase (JPM): 3.11%
- Goldman Sachs (GS): 2.95%
- Equifax (EFX): 2.74%
- Becton Dickinson (BDX): 2.72%
- Qualcomm (QCOM): 2.71%
- ccenture (ACN): 2.70%
- Carnival (CCL): 2.61%
Ricky Sandler's hedge fund increased their long US equity exposure in dramatic fashion in the fourth quarter as assets reported via 13F filing were $5.2 billion, way up from the previous $3.1 billion. And obviously you can see that with all the increased and new positions listed above. Some of their more notable additions were massive increases in their positions in financials via US Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs. Just earlier this morning we saw that hedge fund Valinor Management added heavily to their GS stake, and Sandler's Eminence has as well.
In addition to financials, Eminence added to Hasbro, Qualcomm, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Lockheed Martin. While their portfolio shows hints of the most popular hedge fund holdings with AAPL, WMT, & QCOM, they also have some interesting picks mixed in as well. We haven't seen many funds with positions in Equifax, Oracle or Lockheed Martin, but Sandler's hedge fund owns all three.
They also added a bevy of stocks as brand new positions and their new stakes in BDX, ACN, CCL and BAX are all pretty sizable as well, all in the top ten holdings. In terms of positions they sold completely out of, we see yet another hedge fund has dumped Monsanto. Overall, Eminence increased financials and healthcare exposure and reduced technology exposure.
Data used for this article comes from Alphaclone, our source for backtesting strategies and sorting through all the hedge fund portfolio maneuvers with ease. Assets reported on the 13F filing were $5.2 billion this quarter compared to $3.1 billion last quarter, a whopping 66% increase. Remember that these filings are not representative of the hedge fund's entire base of AUM.
For more on Ricky Sandler and Eminence's investing style, we've attached this old copy of Value Investor Insight:
We'll be tracking 40+ prominent funds in our fourth quarter 2009 hedge fund portfolio tracking series. We've already covered Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, Mohnish Pabrai's Investment Fund, Carl Icahn's hedge fund Icahn Partners, David Einhorn's Greenlight Capital, Stephen Mandel's Lone Pine Capital, John Griffin's Blue Ridge Capital, David Tepper's Appaloosa Management, Warren Buffett's portfolio, John Paulson's hedge fund Paulson & Co, Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital, Dan Loeb's Third Point, Eddie Lampert's RBS Partners, David Ott's Viking Global, and Chris Shumway's hedge fund Shumway Capital Partners, Chase Coleman's Tiger Global, Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners, Roberto Mignone's Bridger Management, Thomas Steyer's Farallon Capital, John Burbank's Passport Capital, Brett Barakett's Tremblant Capital, George Soros' hedge fund Soros Fund Management, and Philippe Laffont's Coatue Management Charles Anderson's Fox Point Capital, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, Jonathan Auerbach's Hound Partners, Lee Hobson's Highside Capital, David Stemerman's Conatus Capital, Matt Iorio's White Elm Capital, and David Gallo's Valinor Management. Check back daily for our new updates.
