Viking Global Investors said it boosted its stake in Pioneer Natural Resources Co. to nearly 9 million shares, or 6 percent of its total outstanding. Viking was already the seventh-largest shareholder at the end of the second quarter. This is the “mother fracker” stock that Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn talked about at the Sohn Investment Conference in May, asserting that it was considerably overvalued. The short sale worked out for the New York hedge fund manager, having dropped around 17 percent or so since he trashed the stock. Now Greenwich, Connecticut-based Viking, co-founded by O. Andreas Halvorsen, is hoping to make money riding it back up. Boston-based Baupost Group was the tenth-largest shareholder at the end of the second quarter.
___
Daniel Och’s New York-based Och-Ziff Capital Management disclosed it owns more than 11.65 million shares of Endo International, or 5.15 percent of the specialty health-care company. The stock is down nearly 30 percent since August.
___
Shares of Etsy closed down nearly 2 percent, at $10.69, or just three cents above its all-time low. The Brooklyn, New York-based online retailer geared toward arts-and-crafts makers went public at $16 on April 1 and closed at $30 on its first day of trading. It later rose as high as $35.74. Charles (Chase) Coleman III’s Tiger Global Management is one of the largest investors in the stock, through a variety of private and public investments. The New York firm owned nearly 9 percent of the public stock at the end of the second quarter.
___
Boston-based Adage Capital Partners said in a regulatory filing that as of October 23 it had more than doubled its stake in Acorda Therapeutics, to 2.2 million shares, or 5.13 percent of the Ardsley, New York-based biotechnology company. The stock is up 32 percent from its September 20 low.
___
BlueMountain Capital Management announced the final closing of the BlueMountain Summit Opportunities Fund II with a total of $1.3 billion. The new fund is a multi-asset vehicle, which invests in public corporate credit and equity, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, real estate and private debt and equity. The New York firm, which manages $22 billion, says it emphasizes positions with excess risk premium associated with lower liquidity and heightened complexity.
