Is Bristow Group Inc (BRS) Going to Burn These Hedge Funds?

In the eyes of many of your fellow readers, hedge funds are perceived as overrated, old financial vehicles of a forgotten age. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds trading currently, Insider Monkey focuses on the moguls of this group, close to 525 funds. It is assumed that this group controls most of the hedge fund industry’s total capital, and by monitoring their best investments, we’ve found a few investment strategies that have historically outperformed the broader indices. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve began to sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outclassed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (find a sample of our picks).

Equally as useful, bullish insider trading sentiment is another way to analyze the investments you’re interested in. There are lots of reasons for an executive to get rid of shares of his or her company, but just one, very clear reason why they would buy. Plenty of academic studies have demonstrated the market-beating potential of this tactic if piggybackers understand what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, let’s examine the newest info surrounding Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS).

How are hedge funds trading Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 14 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 8% from the first quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of key hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, John W. Rogers’s Ariel Investments had the most valuable position in Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS), worth close to $108.9 million, comprising 1.8% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Martin Whitman of Third Avenue Management, with a $21.3 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the stock. Remaining hedgies with similar optimism include Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management and Jim Simons’s Renaissance Technologies.

As industrywide interest increased, certain money managers were leading the bulls’ herd. Ariel Investments, managed by John W. Rogers, created the biggest position in Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS). Ariel Investments had 108.9 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management also made a $21.3 million investment in the stock during the quarter. The other funds with brand new BRS positions are Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management, Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Management, and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management.

How have insiders been trading Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS)?

Legal insider trading, particularly when it’s bullish, is most useful when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest six-month time frame, Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS) has experienced zero unique insiders buying, and zero insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll go over the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS). These stocks are Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAWW), Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (ADR) (NYSE:ASR), Grupo Aeroportuario del Centro Nort(ADR) (NASDAQ:OMAB), Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico (ADR) (NYSE:PAC), and Air Methods Corp (NASDAQ:AIRM). All of these stocks are in the air services, other industry and their market caps resemble BRS’s market cap.

Using the returns explained by Insider Monkey’s strategies, regular investors should always keep one eye on hedge fund and insider trading sentiment, and Bristow Group Inc (NYSE:BRS) is an important part of this process.

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