Charter Communications, Inc. (CHTR): Ratan Capital Group Stays Hot As Stock Soars on Bright House Purchase

Nehal Chopra’s Ratan Capital Group has been one of the most successful hedge funds over the past two years, posting net returns of 22.3% in 2014 when the average hedge fund manager earned just 3.6%. That followed an even more impressive 2013 when her fund returned an outstanding 46.8%. One of the key cogs in her high returns is Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR), which she has held since her fund’s first 13F filing for the end of 2012. Throughout the following two years, shares have risen by over 125%, while she’s also continued to increase her position in the stock, from the 110,000 shares reported initially, up to 472,700 at the end of 2014, which was a 38% increase from the end of the third quarter.

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Chopra’s investment in Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) continues to pay off, as the cable company announced this morning the acquisition of privately-held Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion in cash and stock. News of the deal sent shares of Charter soaring over 7% in intraday trading on Tuesday, which leaves them up by over 18% year-to-date. The deal isn’t totally unexpected, as rumors first surfaced on March 12 that Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) was seeking to purchase Bright House, which caused the stock price gain around 6%.

The purchase of Bright House, the sixth-largest cable operator in the United States, is expected to propel Charter from being the fourth-largest itself, to the second-largest. The deal is a nice consolation prize for Charter after it failed in its attempts to purchase Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE:TWC) last year, which was eventually sold to Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA). Despite that failure, the company might score big if it manages to pick up more than a million customers that Comcast and Time Warner would be forced to drop to satisfy antitrust regulators, which was cited as a likely reason Warren Buffett continues to back Charter.

Buffett has a position of 6.20 million shares as of the end of 2014, while John H. Scully’s SPO Advisory Corp is the largest shareholder among the funds we track, with 7.57 million shares. However, while Chopra does not have even close to the largest investment in Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) in terms of the number of shares held, she does have the largest holding in terms of portfolio exposure, the holding amassing 22.51%.