market folly

While we don't usually cover news like this on the site, this one caught our eye. It appears as though Matthew Grossman's hedge fund Plural Investments plans to accept new capital next year. If you'll recall, Grossman launched his fund with $450 million in 2009 and was already closed to new investors before they even started trading. He previously worked at Steven Cohen's SAC Capital as the Chief Investment Officer of the CR Intrinsic unit. Before that, he followed energy stocks for Julian Robertson's Tiger Management.

This was definitely one of the more notable fund launches during the financial crisis and so it's interesting that they might already open up to new investors next year. Apparently the fund has a lengthy four year lockup so they might consider becoming more lax on that policy as well. For 2009, Plural Investments finished up 7.3%. You can see how they fared compared to others in our 2009 hedge fund performances update. We haven't seen an update as to how they're faring thus far in 2010, but some reports have postulated that the fund was flat back in the first quarter.

As of the first quarter of 2010 (according to their 13F filed with the SEC), some of Plural's largest positions included: S&P 500 (SPY) Puts, American Tower (AMT), Crown Castle (CCI), Medco Health (MHS), and Schlumberger (SLB). So it definitely seems as though Grossman's fund is on the wireless tower stocks bandwagon that we've seen many hedge funds riding. In fact, almost all of Plural's top holdings are some of the most popular stocks amongst hedge funds. We'll have to see if that holds true when they reveal their second quarter holdings in a few weeks.