Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Top Picks Still Looking Down the Rabbit Hole

#3 Allergan plc Ordinary Shares (NYSE:AGN)

– Shares Owned by Baupost Group (as of December 31): 781,800

– Value of Holding (as of December 31): $244.31 Million

The first quarter dip in Allergan plc Ordinary Shares (NYSE:AGN)’s stock price stood at a little over 14%, but that slide has deepened even further into the red territory owing to Treasury Department’s new tax-inversion rules that made the botox-maker’s $160 billion merger with Pfizer infeasible. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew limited the percentage of ownership that a U.S. company can own of a post merger foreign company in order to stymie tax inversion deals. Pfizer could have reduced its effective tax rate by 8% had the deal gone through. In this way, Allegan’s stock has lost over 35% since the beginning of the year. Andreas Halvorsen‘s Viking Global reduced its holding in Allergan plc Ordinary Shares (NYSE:AGN) by 17% to 5.98 million shares during the last three months of 2015.

#2 American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG)

– Shares Owned by Baupost Group (as of December 31): 4.10 Million

– Value of Holding (as of December 31): $253.86 Million

In the follow-up of being under pressure from activist investors Carl Icahn and John Paulson since late last year, American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG)’s stock price has declined by 11% since the beginning of 2016. Peter Hancock, AIG’s CEO, has to a large extent pacified the activists by granting them some concessions like board seats and recently filing for an initial public offering of its mortgage insurer, United Guaranty, without having to undergo a drastic step such as splitting the company in three parts. It seems that the insurance company can now constructively work with the activists and streamline its operations. For the first quarter, the company posted adjusted EPS of $0.65, missing the consensus estimates of $1.00.  Carl Icahn‘s Icahn Capital holds about 42.24 million shares of American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG), which account for about 3.4% of the company’s outstanding shares.

#1 Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

– Shares Owned by Baupost Group (as of December 31): 427,600

– Value of Holding (as of December 31): $332.69 Million

The $528 billion tech giant  has inched down by 7% since the beginning of 2016. The company missed the estimates by reporting EPS of $7.50, versus expectations of $7.97, while the revenue of $20.26 billion was lower than the projected $20.37 billion. Moreover, the company promised to allocate resources in a more efficient way after its moonshot bets gobbled up a staggering $3.6 billion last year. Boykin Curry‘s Eagle Capital Management raised its stake in Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) by 5% to 1.84 million shares during the fourth quarter.

Disclosure: None