Investment guru Dan Loeb recently loaded up on shares of Amazon.com and ViacomCBS while dumping one-third of his Fox Corp. holdings, according to reports.
The activist investor and his hedge fund Third Point, which has racked up 14% annual returns since 1996, bought new stakes in Amazon.com (AMZN), Avantor (AVTR) and IAA (IAA), Barron’s reported.
The hedge fund also revealed that it cut its holdings in Fox Corp. by more than 37 percent, the Hollywood Reporter said.
The positions were revealed in 13F filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission released on Thursday and Friday, which are one of the few public ways of tracking what hedge fund managers are selling and buying. The disclosures are made 45 days after the end of each quarter and may not reflect current positions.
Third Point bought 70,000 shares of Amazon, a position worth roughly $129 million at the end of the fourth quarter quarter, according to a securities filing. However, it dissolved positions in Microsoft (MSFT) and PayPal (PYPL) that had been worth more than $360 million combined, CNBC reported.
The hedge fund also exited a small stake it had in SmileDirectClub (SDC) as shares of the maker of plastic teeth-straightening aligners have been pressured since their public debut last year amid a tidal wave of regulatory concerns, Barron's said.
Loeb is one of the financial world’s most high-profile activists, and news of his taking positions in companies can lead to major stock moves. Loeb is known for recently pushing for changes at Campbell Soup (CPB) and Nestlé (NSRGY).
According to a regulatory disclosure outlining the company’s holdings as of Dec. 31, 2019, Third Point accumulated a $115 million stake at ViacomCBS (VIAC), the report said.
"The fund said that it bought 2.75 million shares in the company, run by CEO Bob Bakish. The value of the shares has fallen somewhat in the past couple of months, and the stake is now worth just over $96 million as of writing," the report said.
Thid Point said that as of Dec. 31 it held 5 million Class A shares in the Murdoch-controlled Fox Corp. (FOXA). That is down from 8 million shares as of Sept. 30 2019. The Fox holdings have a current value of $187 million, the report said.
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