Richard (Mick) McGuire III, founder of Marcato Capital Management, has resigned from the board of directors of Duluth, Georgia-based NCR Corp. In addition, the San Francisco-based manager has moved his firm’s 6.4 percent stake in the technology company from an activist position—which requires a filing of a 13D—to a passive one, making this announcement in a 13G. McGuire, who worked at William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management before founding Marcato, was named to NCR’s board a year ago. His term was recently renewed for a year but he chose to resign instead.
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Shares of troubled Montreal-based drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International closed Thursday at its lowest price since mid-May 2013. The stock fell another 6.5 percent to $73.77 on the eve of the filings of third-quarter holdings of virtually every hedge fund that will indicate which ones sold Valeant shares and which ones continued to support the stock—at least as of September 30. However, we won’t know who has been selling since October 1 until mid-February, when the fourth quarter 13F filings are due.
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Jason Karp’s Tourbillon Capital Partners more than quadrupled its stake in Brampton, Canada-based organic and natural-food sourcing, processing and packaging company, SunOpta, to more than 8 million shares, or 9.5 percent. The 13D filing by the New York-based hedge fund asserts the shares of the $434 million market-capitalization company are undervalued but the hedge fund currently has no plan or proposal for boosting the shares.
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Raymond Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates cut the size of its U.S. stock portfolio by 31 percent to $7.47 billion at the end of September, after also significantly scaling back its investments in emerging markets. As is usually the case, the bulk of the assets are concentrated in several exchange traded funds (ETFs). At the end of the third quarter, Bridgewater’s top three U.S. equity holdings—all ETFs—accounted for nearly three-quarters of U.S. equity assets. However, it cut its stake by 40 percent in two funds that invest in emerging markets.
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BlueMountain Capital Management disclosed its owns more than 8.62 million shares of Chicago’s Coeur Mining, or 5.8 percent of the shares of the precious-metals mining company. At the end of the second quarter, the New York hedge fund firm did not own any shares of Coeur but had a sizable position in put options on the stock.
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Shares of Saint Peters, Missouri-based renewable-energy company, SunEdison, fell another 7.35 percent to $4.54 after an analyst at Axiom Capital reportedly cut its rating on the stock form Hold to Sell. It will be interesting to see who held on to the stock as of September 30.
