Billionaire Kerr Neilson’s Small Cap Picks Include SINA Corp (SINA)

$1.2 billion market cap industrial metals company Stillwater Mining Company (NYSE:SWC) was another of Neilson’s small cap picks with the filing disclosing ownership of over 16 million shares. It is best known for producing palladium and platinum, and is another high-beta stock; specifically, the beta is 2.8. Earnings more than doubled last quarter compared to the first quarter of 2012, with revenue up decently as well, but Stillwater Mining Company (NYSE:SWC) still attracts a good deal of short interest with 18% of the float held short. Billionaire Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management was another major shareholder (research more stocks Fisher owns).

According to the 13F, Platinum owned 2.5 million shares of Sohu.com Inc (NASDAQ:SOHU) at the beginning of April. Another Chinese Internet portal, Sohu.com Inc (NASDAQ:SOHU) grew its revenue by over 30% in its most recent quarter compared to the same period in the previous year but net income was up only 6%. With a valuation of 28 times trailing earnings, it would have to do better on the bottom line in order to justify its current price. Orbis Investment Management, managed by William Gray and his team, was the largest Sohu shareholder out of the filers we track with a position of 7.6 million shares.

Chinese Internet TV and video company Youku Tudou Inc (ADR) (NYSE:YOKU) rounds out our list of the fund’s largest small cap holdings. Youku Tudou Inc (ADR) (NYSE:YOKU) is unprofitable on a trailing basis, and is expected to report considerable losses this year as well before improving in 2014. Still, the forward P/E is 21. While sales growth has been quite high, we would warn investors that this is another stock generally dependent on market conditions with a beta of 3.2 (though it is down 16% in the last year). Bain Capital’s hedge fund Brookside Capital owned 8.2 million shares of Youku at the end of the first quarter of 2013 (check out Brookside’s stock picks).

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.