Jacob Rothschild comes from the Rothschild banking family and has an estimated net worth of $5 billion. Mr. Rothschild made the majority of his fortune from being the founder of the J. Rothschild Assurance Group. He is the Chairman of RIT Capital Partners PLC, an investment trust, which was earlier called Rothschild Investment Trust. The investment trust trades on the London stock exchange as RIT Capital Partners PLC (LON:RCP) and has a market cap of $3.64 billion. The investment trust makes its investments in three different areas: equity funds, public equities, and special situations. RIT Capital Partners’ website states, “We hold a core portfolio of leading global businesses which typically comprise three characteristics: companies with an entrenched market position; a history of consistent returns to shareholders and an appropriate valuation.” According to the latest 13F filing of the investment trust, it had a U.S public equity portfolio containing $429 million in holdings, and was focused primarily on the consumer discretionary and information technology sectors. While analyzing the equity portfolio of RIT Capital Partners, we found three intriguing new positions in Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS), Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA). We’ll discuss these companies in this article.
Why are we interested in the 13F filings of a select group of hedge funds? We use these filings to determine the top 15 small-cap stocks held by these elite funds based on 16 years of research that showed their top small-cap picks are much more profitable than both their large-cap stocks and the broader market as a whole. These small-cap stocks beat the S&P 500 Total Return Index by an average of nearly one percentage point per month in our backtests, which were conducted over the period of 1999 to 2012. Moreover, since the beginning of forward testing from August 2012, the strategy worked just as our research predicted, outperforming the market every year and returning 118% over the last 35 months, which is more than 60 percentage points higher than the returns of the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) (see more details).
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Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) is a new position in the equity portfolio of RIT Capital Partners. The investment trust purchased 509,000 shares of the entertainment company, valued at $58.07 million. The shares of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) lost a major part of their yearly gains after weaker third quarter of fiscal 2015 financial results, for the period ending June 27. The entertainment giant lost its seven-quarter-long streak of beating the market’s estimates as it posted revenues of $13.1 billion against the analysts’ estimates of $13.23 billion. However, its earnings per share of $1.45 were better than the market’s expectations of $1.42. The hedge funds in our database were slightly bearish on the stock of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) during the second quarter. The aggregate holdings in the entertainment company rose only 1% to $4.42 billion despite a growth of 8.82% in the share price of Walt Disney during that period. Out of the hedge funds that we track at Insider Monkey, 60 held equity positions in the company at the end of the second quarter, a drop of four. Fisher Asset Management, led by Ken Fisher, was the largest shareholder of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS), followed by Lansdowne Partners, led by Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz, with the firms holding 8.45 million shares and 8.32 million shares, respectively.
RIT Capital Partners opened a new position in Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), buying 817,000 shares valued at $53.42 million. Its stake in the consumer products company accounted for 12.45% of the investment trust’s overall portfolio. The currency headwinds in 2015 have had an adverse affect on Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), as the company relies on emerging markets for a major portion of its sales. The company reported a year-over-year decline of 6.5% in its net sales during the second quarter of 2015. Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) announced its second quarter results on July 30, reporting earnings per share of $0.70 over sales of $4.1 billion, matching the market’s expectations. After including after-tax charges, its EPS came out to be $0.63 for the quarter. The smart money was bullish on the stock of Colgate-Palmolive during the second quarter, as 35 hedge funds held equity positions worth $1.77 billion at the end of the quarter. The aggregate holdings were half-a-percentage point down in comparison with the previous quarter, whereas the number of hedge funds was up by seven. The shares of Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) dropped by 5.67% during that time, indicating additional purchases from hedge funds. Among the hedge funds in our database, Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies held the largest stake in the company, comprising 12.59 million shares valued at $823.56 million. First Eagle Investment Management and Yacktman Asset Management held large positions in Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL) as well, of 4.81 million shares and 1.48 million shares, respectively.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) was another new addition to the equity portfolio of RIT Capital Partners, which held 547,000 shares worth $45.01 million. The Chinese e-commerce company has faced a decline in its share value primarily because of the sluggish economy in its home country. The shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) have declined by 35.07% year-to-date. The Chinese stock market faced its steepest fall since 2007 on Monday, with the country’s official news agency dubbing it “Black Monday.” Alibaba was among the shares being battered throughout that day. The hedge funds in our database trimmed their stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) during the second quarter by 18% to $4.77 billion as of June 30. It is important to consider that the shares of the e-commerce giant were down by only 1.17% during the second quarter, pointing towards a large sell-off from hedgies. Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management was the largest shareholder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in our database, holding 6.52 million shares valued at $536.73 million at the end of the second quarter. Viking Global and Eagle Capital Management were other primary stakeholders in the company, owning 6.04 million shares and 6.03 million shares, respectively.
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