Grisanti Brown & Partners is a multi-billion hedge fund, which focuses on Consumer and Healthcare stocks, managed by Christopher C. Grisanti. It is based in New-York City and was founded in 1999. Mr. Grisanti is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the owner/co-founder of the fund. The equity portfolio value of Grisanti Capital amounts to $267.37 million, according to its latest 13F for the end of March. Moreover, the portfolio is diversified across sectors with Consumer Discretionary and Healthcare amassing the largest shares. In this article we will take a look at Grisanti’s largest positions at the end of March, which are represented by AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO), and Medtronic PLC (NYSE:MDT).
We track hedge funds and prominent investors because our research has shown that historically their stock picks delivered superior risk-adjusted returns. This is especially true in the small-cap space. The 50 most popular large-cap stocks among hedge funds had a monthly alpha of about 6 basis points per month between 1999 and 2012; however the 15 most popular small-cap stocks delivered a monthly alpha of 80 basis points during the same period. This means investors would have generated 10 percentage points of alpha per year simply by imitating hedge funds’ top 15 small-cap ideas. We have been tracking the performance of these stocks since the end of August 2012 and these stocks beat the market by 80 percentage points (137% return vs. S&P 500′s 57% gain) over the last 32 months (see the details here).
On the first spot is AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), in which the hedge-fund raised its stake by 90% to $23.79 million, which contains 406,385 shares. AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) is a research-based biopharmaceutical company with headquarters in Illinois, United States. AbbVie is the second-leading drug-maker on the hepatitis C drugs market. On Tuesday, the company sold $16.7 billion worth of bonds with the goal to finance its $21 billion acquisition of the pharmaceutical company Pharmacyclics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCYC). This bond sale is the third-largest corporate bond transaction in 2015. Among the largest shareholders of AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) are Samuel Isaly’s Orbimed Advisors and David Shaw’s D. E. Shaw.
In Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), Grisanti held around 207,600 shares valued at $17.53 million. During the first quarter, the position in the $70 billion communications and equipment company by 66,800 shares. Following strong financial results for the first quarter that came above the expectations and showed growth in annual terms, several analysts reiterated their ‘Buy’ ratings on Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) and raised their price targets. Among them are MKM Partners and Jefferies Group, which raised the price target to $94.00 from $92.00 and $88.00 respectively. Daniel Och’s OZ Management, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital and Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management also disclosed long positions in Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) in their last 13F filings.
Grisanti Capital Management held 344,900 shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) at the end of March with a value of $16.77 million. For the first quarter, Verizon reported revenue up by 3.8% year-over-year to around $32 billion. The company’s earnings rose 21.4% to $1.02 per share. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.95 per share on revenue of $32.3 billion. During the first quarter, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) added 565,000 subscribers for a total of 102.6 million clients. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway also owns around 15.0 million shares of Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) as of the end of last year.
Grisanti Capital Management also increased its positions in Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO) by 20% to 258,010 shares, worth $16.41 million. The move comes after the stock of Valero gained more than 29% in the first three months of 2015. Valero Energy Corporation is one of the largest independent marketer and refiner of petroleum in the USA, with a refining capacity of around 2.9 million barrels per day. Its refineries are located in Canada, USA, and the Caribbean. For the first quarter, Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO) posted a strong year-on-year growth in earnings to $1.87 per share from $1.54. Valero also raised its dividend by 4.3% to $0.28 per share. Billionaires David Shaw, Israel Englander and Steven Cohen reported large positions in Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO) as of the end of 2014, with Englander and Cohen boosting their stakes during the fourth quarter.
During the first three months of 2015, Grisanti Capital Management surged its stake in Medtronic PLC (NYSE:MDT) by around 129,950 shares to 207,300 shares with a total value of $16.17 million. Medtronic PLC (NYSE:MDT) is the world’s third largest medical device company with operations in more than 145 countries, whose stock gained more than 8% during the first quarter amid the acquisition of Covidien for around $49.9 billion, which aside from expanding Medtronic’s portfolio of products and services will also result in significant tax savings due to the fact that the new corporation is registered in Ireland. Among the billionaires we track, Israel Englander, Daniel Och, and Ken Griffin disclosed substantial positions in Medtronic PLC (NYSE:MDT) as of the end of last year.
Disclosure: None
