market folly

Jay Petschek's Corsair Capital Management is out with its fourth quarter letter. In it, we see that Corsair finished 2010 up 15.4% which ironically is the exact same number as their compound net annual return since inception.

Highlighting their overall market view, Petschek writes, "as we believe post-recession equity markets are generally driven by the direction of earnings, which in turn is driven by economic growth, the markets seem to have room to move higher."

Portfolio Positions

Corsair singles out their position in LyondellBasell (LYB) in the letter as they believe the stock still trades at a discount to its peers. You'll recall that Dan Loeb's Third Point owns LYB in size as well. The company announced a dividend policy and plans to optimize its capital structure.

Petschek also highlights their stake in CapitalSource (CSE) as the company continues its transition from an over-leveraged REIT into a bank. Corsair believes shares are still undervalued and likes the company's debt repurchases and share repurchase plan.

Their letter also focuses on their position in Aon (AON). The hedge fund notes that the integration of Hewitt will create shareholder value and further entrench the company's dominant position in human capital solutions. We penned an in-depth analysis of AON in our last issue of our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter as many hedge funds had accumulated shares in past quarters. Click here for a free sample issue.

Corsair Capital Management's full letter and their investment write-up on Neo Material Technologies (NEM) is embedded below:



You can download a .pdf copy here

If you missed them, we've posted up a plethora of hedge fund letters recently, including:

- Maverick Capital's letter
- John Paulson's year-end letter
- Dan Loeb & Third Point's Q4 letter
- JANA Partners' letter
- Greenlight Capital's commentary
- Summary of Perry Capital's letter
- Xerion Fund's 2011 strategy
- Summary of Kleinheinz Capital's letter