Sir Michael Hintze’s CQS Cayman LP has filed its 13F with SEC for the reporting period of March 31, with the fund having an equity portfolio valued at $2.13 billion as of the reporting date. Financial News recently awarded Hintze the title of Best Hedge Fund Manager in Fixed Income and Credit category, and his primary investments are in the health care, consumer discretionary, finance, and industrial sectors. The top ten stock holdings of the British-Australian fund manager account for 51.46% of his portfolio’s value. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Adobe Systems Incorporate (NASDAQ:ADBE) are among its technology stock picks, which we will discuss in this article.
CQS Cayman is just one of more than 700 hedge funds that we have in our database, whose 13F filings we collate quarterly as part of our small-cap strategy. Even though most smaller investors believe that tracking 13F filings is a fruitless endeavor because they are filed with a delay of a maximum of 45 days after the end of a calendar quarter, the results of our research prove that is not the case. To be on the safe side, we used a delay of 60 days in our backtests that involved the 13F filings of funds between 1999 and 2012 and we still managed to gain an annual alpha in the double digits. Moreover, since the official launch of our strategy in August 2012, our small-cap strategy has obtained returns of more than 139%, beating the S&P 500 Total Return Index by over 80 percentage points (see the details).
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the largest technology stock investment of CQS Cayman. It owns 194,951 shares of the iPhone-maker with a market value of $24.26 million. The investment manager added heavily to the position during the first quarter, purchasing 186,172 of those shares. According to a recent report from Good Technology, Apple Inc. was the global leader in enterprise device activations during the first quarter of 2015. The iPad maker had a 72% share in worldwide enterprise device activations in the quarter followed by Android devices with a 26% share. This could be the big enterprise leap Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) was looking for and it might help the company compete with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) in the enterprise device market. The tech giant will release its HomeKit iOS 8 framework next month, which will allow users to control connected home accessories. Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn remains the largest Apple shareholder in our database.
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CHKP) is a new stock investment of the fund manager and consists of call options underlying 200,000 shares of the tech company, with the position having a market value of $16.39 million. Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CHKP) is a company active in the information technology (IT) security sector whose shares have increased by 9.8% year-to-date. Some of the primary services of the company include firewall, intrusion prevention system, Anti-Bot, Application Control, and virtual private network services. As per the recent IDC Worldwide Security Appliance Tracker survey, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ:CHKP) was the market leader in combined Firewall and UTM appliance revenue during the financial year 2014. Generation Investment Management, Iridian Asset Management and Ken Griffin‘s Citadel Investment Group are among some of the leading investors of the security company.
Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) is another new position added by Hintze in the first quarter. CQS Cayman has a new position of call options underlying 200,000 shares of Adobe Systems, with market value of $14.79 million. Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) is known for its wide variety of software services and the tech company is planning to increase its market share in the enterprise sector by collaborating with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Under the partnership, the companies are planning to combine the Marketing Cloud Solution of Adobe with the Dynamics CRM of Microsoft to offer a complete enterprise solution to customers. This service would handle all aspects of business including marketing, sales, and service. ValueAct Capital, Lone Pine Capital, and Lee Ainslie‘s Maverick Capital hold substantial positions in Adobe Systems Incorporated.
The investment manager also has call options underlying 400,000 shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), with a market value of $12.64 million. As per a report on the storage industry from RBC Capital Markets, storage industry leaders including Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) are likely to cede their market share to new storage companies. Amit Daryanani, an analyst at RBC, was of the opinion that the storage industry is under disruption and is likely to decelerate in the upcoming years. Some of the key new entrants in the storage industry include SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) and Western Digital Corp (NASDAQ:WDC). Pzena Investment Management, Iridian Asset Management, and AQR Capital Management maintain investments in Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ).
Lastly, Hintze has added a new position of call options for Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) to his portfolio during the first quarter, underlying 150,000 shares of the social network, with the position having a market value of $12.33 million. After the acquisition of Oculus VR® last year, Facebook Inc is all set to release the Oculus Rift VR headset next year. The company has launched standard specifications that would be necessary for using the technology, which include a powerful graphics card equivalent to an NVIDIA GTX 970 or higher, an Intel i5-4590 processor, 8GB of RAM, an HDMI port with 1.3 video output, and two USB 3.0 ports. It is quite evident that running Oculus Rift will require a gaming-level PC. Further, the Oculus chief said that the technology is unlikely to work with laptops and that the tech company is estimating the exact technical specifications. Stephen Mandel‘s Lone Pine Capital, as well as Coatue Management hold large stakes in Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB).
Disclosure: None
