Bernard Selz‘s Selz Capital has disclosed its first-quarter holdings in a 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bernard Selz founded New York-based Selz Capital in 2003 and the fund currently has nearly $600 million in its equity portfolio. The fund invests in consumer discretionary, energy, healthcare, and transportation. Selz’s latest 13F filing revealed some interesting moves, such as a new position in Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), but also showed a large increase in exposure to some small-cap stocks. In this article we will take a look at Bernard Selz’s top small-cap picks which are Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL), Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc (NYSE:RHP), and Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (NASDAQ:SBGI).
The small-cap picks of Selz Capital (and other funds from our database) are of a particular interest to us because they align with our strategy. Through a series of backtests, we determined that the 15 most popular small-cap picks among hedge funds can outperform the S&P 500 Total Return Index by nearly one percentage point per month (read more details about the results of our backtests). In addition, these stocks delivered a monthly alpha of 80 basis points in those backtests. Furthermore, since we started following these top small-cap ideas in real-time, this system has posted returns of more than 135%, beating the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by around 80 percentage points.
Selz owned 944,900 shares of Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL) valued at $35.66 million, the stake being increased by 80% during the first quarter, a period during which the stock advanced by more than 10%. Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL) is expected to release its financial results tomorrow and analysts expect a year-over-year growth in EPS, to $0.60, and revenue, to $274.98 million. Among the funds we track, several investors disclosed big positions in Air Lease Corp (NYSE:AL), including John Osterweis’ Osterweis Capital and Dinakar Singh’s TPG-Axon.
Another one of Selz’s small-cap picks is Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc (NYSE:RHP). The investor owns 365,400 shares of the company, up by more than 55% over the quarter, the value of the stake amounting to $22.26 million. In April, Ryman Hospitality Properties’ stock witnessed a significant decline in short interest to around 1.71 million shares, down by 41% during the month. This trend comes after Citigroup raised its price target on the stock to $60.00 in March, with a ‘Neutral’ rating and Zacks upgraded it to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’. Moreover, in the first three months of 2015, the stock of Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc (NYSE:RHP) jumped by over 16%. A few days ago Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc (NYSE:RHP) entered into oversold territory and it creates a good opportunity for investors to capture a high yield. Other hedge funds with big positions in Ryman Hospitality Properties Inc (NYSE:RHP) are Hirzel Capital Management with 1.54 million shares and Greenwood Investments with 176,230 shares as of the end of 2014.
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (NASDAQ:SBGI) is also one of Selz’s largest positions represented by a small-cap company. As of the end of March, Selz holds a $21.53 million stake in the $2.90 billion television broadcasting company, which contains 685,400 shares. The stake witnessed one of the largest increases in the fund’s 13F portfolio, as Selz added 575,400 shares during the first three months of 2015. Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (NASDAQ:SBGI) will announce its quarterly earnings results today and analysts are forecasting earnings of $0.12 per share and revenue around $503.67 million for the first quarter. For the first quarter of 2014, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (NASDAQ:SBGI) posted revenue of $413 million and earnings of $0.27 per share. One of the billionaires with a long position in Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc (NASDAQ:SBGI) is Larry Robbins, whose fund Glenview Capital owns 2.63 million shares as of the end of last year. Moreover, Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management initiated a stake during the fourth quarter of last year with 960,100 shares.
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