Thursday, December 17, 2009

Lee Ainslie's Maverick Capital Bet Big On Technology Stocks (FSLR; BRK.a)

I sure didn't intend to go "all FSLR all the time" today but that's the way it's developing.
From Market Folly:
Next up is Lee Ainslie's hedge fund firm Maverick Capital. Ainslie learned his ways under the guidance of hedge fund legend Julian Robertson and is a member of the Tiger Cub family. (You can view a Tiger Cub family tree here). As such, Maverick is a part of the Tiger Cub portfolio clone created with Alphaclone that is seeing great returns and is comprised of holdings widely held by all of the Tiger Cub hedge funds.

Maverick manages well over $8 billion and focuses on straight up stock picking on both sides of the book (long and short) but they do not employ pairs trades. They have six industry heads and each team handles their respective sector. Risk management is a big focus at Maverick and position sizes typically don't go above 5-8% of the portfolio. They focus on value and growth at a reasonable price (GARP) investments and they like to compare enterprise value to sustainable free cash flow. To learn more about this hedge fund, check out our profile/biography on Lee Ainslie & Maverick.

Keep in mind that the positions listed below were Maverick's long equity, note, and options holdings as of September 30th, 2009 as filed with the SEC. We don't cover every single portfolio maneuver, as we instead focus on all the big moves. All holdings are common stock unless otherwise denoted....

...Some Increased Positions
Positions they already owned but added shares to:
First Solar (FSLR): Increased position by 307.5%
Visa (V): Increased by 88.2%
Apollo Group (APOL): Increased by 49.4%
Gilead Science (GILD): Increased by 48.9%
Marvell Technology (MRVL): Increased by 42.9%
Priceline (PCLN): Increased by 42.2%
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B): Increased by 40%
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A): Increased by 37%...MORE