5 Blue Chip Stocks To Buy Now According To Billionaire Andreas Halvorsen

3. General Electric Company (NYSE:GE)

Viking Global’s Stake Value: $1.17 billion

Viking Global’s 13F Portfolio: 4.73%

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 51

General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) is a multi-national conglomerate with interests in renewable energy, aviation, healthcare and power. The company shares represented 4.73% of Viking Global’s total Q1 portfolio.

A detailed review of the 900+ hedge funds in the Q1 database of Insider Monkey showed that 51 hedge funds held positions in General Electric Company (NYSE:GE), down from 57 hedge funds in the previous quarter. Ahead of Viking Global, Eagle Capital Management stood as the firm’s largest shareholder in the first quarter, with a stake consisting of 13.29 million shares priced at $1.21 billion.

On July 12, Morgan Stanley analyst Joshua Pokrzywinski lowered the firm’s price target on General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) to $95 from $100 and reiterated an ‘Overweight’ rating on the company shares. The analyst advised investors to avoid GE shares in front of Q2 earnings as second half expectations need to come down. However, he still sees the stock carrying “an undemanding valuation” and a set of businesses that are considered generally more recession-resistant.

Vulcan Value Partners, an asset management firm, highlighted many stocks in its Q3 2021 investor letter, and General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) was one of them. Here’s what was said:

“During the quarter, we sold our positions in General Electric Co. General Electric is a company we followed for a long time. In the past, we removed GE from the MVP list due to management’s poor capital allocation decisions which resulted in value instability. Larry Culp, the former CEO of Danaher, became CEO of General Electric in 2018. The company implemented a vast restructuring program to simplify the industrial side of its business, sold off non-core assets, paid down debt with the proceeds, and drastically shrunk GE Capital. These restructuring activities allowed its world-class jet engine and healthcare businesses to shine through, and improved value stability. As a result, we added the company back to the MVP list. While the pandemic negatively impacted General Electric’s aviation business in the short run, it also gave us the opportunity to buy General Electric in the second quarter of 2020 with a substantial margin of safety. GE is a good example of a competitively entrenched, yet slower growing MVP business. As its stock price rose rapidly over the last year, its value growth did not keep up, and the price to value gap closed quickly. As our margin of safety diminished, we sold our position in GE and allocated to more discounted companies.”