Billionaire Ole Andreas Halvorsen, who once worked for Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management, founded Viking Global Investors in 1999. The $30 billion hedge fund, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, returned a whopping 89% net-of-fees in its first year. The Norwegian-born billionaire also had a strong 2015 in terms of performance, considering that the overall hedge fund industry lost money last year. His Viking Global Equities fund returned 8.3% in 2015, while the Viking Long Fund posted gains of 4.5% last year. Mr. Halvorsen’s Viking Global is a long/short global equity hedge fund, which makes it relatively convenient for individual investors to track the billionaire’s long term bets. Data compiled by Insider Monkey show that Viking Global’s 62 long positions in companies with a market capitalization above $1 billion generated a weighted average return of 3.7% in 2015. That being said, the following article will discuss five noteworthy moves undertaken by Halvorsen and Viking Global during the final quarter of 2015.
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To begin with, the Norwegian-born money manager upped his stake in Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM) by 10.18 million shares or 43% during the fourth quarter of 2015 to 33.75 million shares. This was the billionaire’s largest equity position on December 31, worth $1.95 billion. In May 2015, semiconductor Avago Technologies sealed a deal to buy Broadcom Corporation for $37 billion in a cash-and-stock deal that was completed earlier this month. The combined company is now called Broadcom Limited, while its ordinary shares are trading under ticker symbol “AVGO”. Under the terms of agreement, former Broadcom shareholders could choose whether to receive $54.50 per share in cash, 0.4378 Holdco ordinary shares (which currently represent Broadcom Limited ordinary shares), or 0.4378 Restricted Exchangeable Units of Safari Cayman L.P., which is a direct wholly-0wned subsidiary of Holdco. Equity holders of 188.76 million shares of Broadcom common stock, or 30.7% of outstanding common stock, made the cash election, while equity holders of 238.06 million shares made an election to receive ordinary shares of Broadcom Limited. Matthew Halbower’s Pentwater Capital Management owned 20.73 million shares of Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ:BRCM) as of December 31.
