Greenhaven Associates’ Top Value Picks for Q2 and Beyond

Value investor Edgar Wachenheim purchased Greenhaven Associates from the Gottesman family in 1998. Based on the fund’s latest 13F filing with the SEC, the value of its public equity portfolio stood at $5.23 billion at the end of March. Greenhaven’s equity portfolio was highly concentrated, with the firm’s top-10 holdings representing about 86% of its value. Also typical of long-term-oriented value investors like Mr. Wachenheim was the fact that his fund’s turnover ratio for the quarter was very low, at just 16.7%. Retail investors seeking to beat the market with a long-term horizon in mind should certainly consider the firm’s top investment ideas, which we’ll analyze in this article.

At Insider Monkey, we track nearly 800 hedge funds and other institutional investors as part of our small-cap strategy, which can help a retail investor beat Mr. Market by nearly one percentage point per month (see the details). Additionally, we can use the data we collate to see how hedge funds have positioned themselves towards different companies in a given period and how their collective sentiment has shifted towards them.

#5 AIRBUS GROUP SE UNSPON ADR EA REPR 0.25 ORD (OTCMKTS:EADSY)

 – Shares Owned by Greenhaven Associates (as of March 31): 31.68 Million

 – Value of Holding (as of March 31): $524.33 Million

Greenhaven inched up its stake in the $48 billion European aerospace company by 2% during the first trimester. AIRBUS GROUP SE UNSPON ADR EA REPR 0.25 ORD (OTCMKTS:EADSY)’s shares are down by nearly 6.4% this year, though they have enjoyed an uptick since the release of the company’s first quarter financial results on April 28. While earnings fell below expectations for the quarter, owing to charges incurred as a result of the weak air cargo market, investor confidence rose due to the company’s management expressing confidence that it will meet its full-year revenue and profit forecasts and predicting that profits from its other segments will pick up the slack in the air cargo segment. Airbus logged a total of 82 new orders in April alone, while that number stood at just ten during the March quarter.

#4 JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)

 – Shares Owned by Greenhaven Associates (as of March 31): 9.05 Million

 – Value of Holding (as of March 31): $536 Million

The finance sector represented about 28% of Greenhaven’s portfolio on March 31 and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) was a big reason why, with the holding representing about 10.3% of the portfolio’s value after the position was trimmed by 15,000 shares during the first quarter. Following the first quarter decline in the finance sector, JPMorgan’s shares are down by a little over 6% this year, despite the New York-based financial holding company coming out ahead of analysts’ consensus estimates on both the top and bottom-lines with its financial results for the March quarter. Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management increased its ownership of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) by 1% during the March quarter to over 14 million shares.

Greenhaven’s top-3 value picks are studied on the second page of this article.