…an annualized gain of around 10.5%, while the more concentrated fund, the Yacktman Focused Fund, has been a bit better with an 11% annualized gain. In this article, we will take a closer look at the highest yielding stocks, which account for more than 4% of the Focused Fund. The top three stocks are SYSCO Corporation (NYSE:SYY), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ).
As consumers wait to see how a new wave of telecom sector consolidation impacts carrier pricing plans for popular smartphones such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices, billionaire hedge fund investors such as John Paulson of Paulson & Co. appear poised to play an outsized role in the industry’s fate. Second-tier wireless providers such as Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S), T-Mobile and MetroPCS Communications Inc (NYSE:PCS) are all currently engaged in merger efforts that, depending on shareholder votes, could reinvigorate the U.S. wireless industry so price-competitive players have a chance at winning back customers and profits from AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), who’ve consistently gained market share in the shift to smartphones.
Big Get Bigger in Annual Manager Ranking (Hedge Fund Alert)
Recent investment gains and greater use of leverage have added even more heft to the hedge fund industry’s biggest managers. The number of firms with at least $10 billion of gross fund assets reached 90 at yearend, up from 74 a year earlier, according to the latest update of Hedge Fund Alert’s Manager Database. And the number with $25 billion or more jumped to 32, from 20 at yearend 2011. This year’s ranking is led by Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, with $198.2 billion of gross assets — a measure that includes leverage. Bridgewater Associates, with $139.3 billion of gross assets in hedge funds, placed second, followed by Citadel ($107.6 billion), BTG Pactual Asset Management ($78.9 billion) and SAC Capital ($75.4 billion). Last year, the league table was topped by Citadel, followed by Millennium, Bridgewater, Pimco and SAC.
Crone’s Citrine Fund Hires Ex-Touradji’s DiCenso, Hommert (Businessweek)
Tony DiCenso and Andreas Hommert joined Citrine Capital Management LLC, a metals hedge-fund company, said founder and Chief Investment Officer Paul Crone. DiCenso joined New York-based Citrine as an analyst and trader and Hommert is an analyst, Crone said today in an interview in Lausanne, Switzerland. Both previously worked at Touradji Capital Management LP, he said. Crone started Citrine last year after seven years at Touradji, where he was head trader. Touradji managed $890 million at the end of 2011. Citrine uses exchange-listed derivatives to trade industrial metals, gold and platinum-group metals.
Greece Receives Two Bids for State Gambling Company OPAP (Wall Street Journal)
Greece received binding offers from a hedge fund and a private equity group for a 33% stake in state-controlled betting monopoly OPAP SA (OPAP.AT), the privatization agency said Wednesday, as it moved ahead with one of the country’s flagship asset sales this year. The two bids now go to the agency’s board of directors, who have yet to unseal the bids, and then they are expected to be reviewed by Greece’s Court of Auditors before a final winner is announced, a process that could take several weeks. But the deal, if it goes through, could fetch the government an estimated…
