Daniel Benton’s Andor Opportunity Fund rose 3 percent in November in what amounted to a relatively calm month for his Rye Brook, New York-based firm, Andor Capital Management. As a result, the heavily concentrated technology fund is down about 6 percent entering the final month of the year.
However, it did not exactly get off to a great start in December. Three stocks accounted for 40 percent of Andor’s $2.15 billion in U.S. equity assets at the end of September: Tesla Motors, Twitter and Apple. In November, Tesla rose about 1.15 percent but fell 5.3 percent on Monday, Twitter rose less than 1 percent but dropped 6.5 percent on Monday and Apple surged 10.6 percent but fell 3.3 percent on Monday.
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Credit Suisse raised its price target on hedge fund favorite Dollar General to $76 from $74, stressing in a note to clients that the “market’s fixation” on the discount retailer’s uncertainty “provides fundamental opportunity.” It also maintained its Outperform rating on the stock. In the note, Credit Suisse says Dollar General’s stock has lagged other “staples retailers” due to growing uncertainty with its acquisition offer for Family Dollar Stores, but it views the retailer as “an attractive risk/reward play overall.”
Four of Dollar General’s nine largest shareholders are hedge funds: New York-based Soroban Capital Partners; Greenwich, Connecticut-based Lone Pine Capital; New York-based Jana Partners, which established a stake exceeding eight million shares in the third quarter; and New York-based Glenview Capital Management.
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Martin Sass, founder, chairman and CEO of M.D. Sass, has created the M.D. Sass Investment Academy at the Brooklyn College School of Business, which will establish an undergraduate student-run hedge fund at the investment manager’s alma mater. Investment decisions will be made under the supervision of seasoned investors. Students who participate will also experience one of the biggest perks of owning a hedge fund — they will be eligible for performance-based rewards paid from the fund’s profits. New York native Sass graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1963. He founded M.D. Sass in 1972.
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Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value sold a little more than 300,000 shares of DSP Group, reducing its stake to 4.8 percent of the provider of wireless chipsets. In June 2013, DSP shareholders elected four new board members, two of whom were nominated by New York-based Starboard.
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Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital Management bought one million shares of PHH Corporation, boosting its stake in the provider of mortgages to 7.59 percent in what is indicated as a passive investment.
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New York-based multistrategy manager Highbridge Capital Management upped its stake in Centrus Energy Corp. by about 170,000 shares, to 5.61 percent of the supplier of enriched uranium fuel for nuclear power plants. The investment is passive.
