Daniel Och started Och-Ziff Capital Management almost twenty years ago, and it has become one of the largest institutional managers of alternative assets since then. A subsidiary of the firm is OZ Management, a fund that must comply with the SEC’s quarterly requirements of position disclosures. We take keen interest in these holdings, as we have found that the most popular small-cap stocks amongst hedge fund managers can handily outperform the market (see here for our double-digit return strategy). OZ Management initiated a number of new positions in Q4 2012; read below to see some of the biggest and best additions.
Express Scripts Holding Company (NASDAQ:ESRX) is a healthcare administration and management services provider with a market cap of $48 billion. Express Scripts Holding Company (NASDAQ:ESRX) has a respectable following amongst the funds we track, with 74 funds claiming ownership. Recent analyst activity includes a downgrade to Neutral by Macquarie on the twentieth of last month. Express Scripts Holding Company (NASDAQ:ESRX) took a 24% spill after revealing a large revenue miss in its Q3 earnings report last November; this latest report for Q4 showed that earnings and revenue were much more in line with Wall Street’s expectations and displayed a bullish 74% jump in net profit. Israel Englander of Millennium Management owns over 800,000 shares of Express Scripts Holding Company (NASDAQ:ESRX) in his fund.
Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc (NYSE:CCE) is the European remainder of what used to be the dominant bottler of Coke products in the U.S. In 2010, Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc (NYSE:CCE) sold its U.S. bottling operations to the Coca-Cola Company , keeping its distribution network in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc (NYSE:CCE) has been a respectable winner for those investors who got in this time last year; the stock returned 30% and still has another 5% to go, according to analysts’ price targets. The company announced in the beginning of February that it would be increasing its quarterly dividend by 25% from $0.16 to $0.20. Billionaire David Harding of Winton Capital Management keeps almost $6 million worth of this stock in his portfolio.
Real estate and relocation service provider Realogy Holdings Corp (NYSE:RLGY) received an investment of just under $90 million from OZ. The holding company owns and operates realtor brands such as Century 21 and Coldwell Banker. Realogy Holdings Corp (NYSE:RLGY) debuted on the NYSE in the middle of October last year, and has returned 38% to investors since then. Some of Realogy Holdings Corp (NYSE:RLGY)’s notable stakeholders include John Paulson and Apollo Global Management; Apollo owns half of the company. Aforementioned billionaire John Paulson owns over 13.3 million shares in his fund, Paulson & Co (view the fund’s portfolio here). Global specialty chemicals and materials manufacturer W.R. Grace & Co. (NYSE:GRA) occupies the last spot on our list, as it collected slightly over $80 million of OZ Management’s capital. Although the company’s latest earnings announcement delivered a beat over analyst’s EPS and revenue predictions, revenues suffered a small drop of 3.4% versus the same quarter last year. The stock is currently about 10% away from its projected price targets for a year out; it has already appreciated by 37% in the past twelve months. Billionaire Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group recently bumped up his share count by over 43%, according to his latest 13F.
The article Billionaire Daniel Och’s New Purchases originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Jake Mann.
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