Lance Helfert and Paul Orfalea’s West Coast Asset Management has left its equity portfolio relatively unchanged since last quarter, except for one big change. The fund reduced its exposure significantly in Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE:TAP), which was its top holding in the second quarter, to over 56,000 shares from over 87,000 shares. Stocks which took spot 2, 3 and 4 in the second quarter have been pushed to 1,2, & 3 respectively due to the divestment of large number of shares of Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE:TAP). During the third quarter, the fund’s largest holding was Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), followed by Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Lance Helfert & Paul Orfalea established West Coast Asset Management in 2000 by. Orfalea is also the founder of Kinko’s, which was acquired by FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX) in 2004. The fund provides fixed income, alternative asset management and exclusive equity services to over 100 institutional and HNI clients. On September 25, it was announced that Lucia Capital Group would be buying managed equity and fixed income accounts of West Coast Asset Management. Following this transaction, both co-founders Helfert and Orefa will be joining Lucia.
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) currently accounts for over 10% of the fund’s equity portfolio. During the third quarter, West Coast Asset Management marginally reduced its holding in the company by 164 shares to slightly under 58,000 shares. For third quarter of 2014, Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) declared revenue of $18.4 billion and EPS of $1.66 per share, compared to revenue of $17.5 billion and EPS of $1.04 for the same quarter last year. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Donald Yacktman’s Yacktman Asset Management are two of the largest institutional investors of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). As of June 30, 2014, Fisher Asset Management owns over 10.4 million shares and Yacktman Asset Management owns over 9 million shares.
West Coast Asset Management reduced its stake in Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB) by 570 shares to 46,966 shares. Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB)’s shares haven’t really moved much since the start of this year and as of now are up by less than 1% for the year. For the second quarter of 2014, Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB)’s revenue was $5.34 billion and EPS was $1.35, compared to revenue of $5.26 billion and EPS of $1.37 for the same quarter, last year. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies is bullish on this stock, the fund raised its stake by 104% to over 1.34 million shares during the second quarter.
Like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Kimberly Clark Corp (NYSE:KMB), West Coast Asset Management also marginally reduced its stake in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) by 2,321 shares to over 105,000 shares. During the third quarter Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s share went up by almost 15%. The company has increased its focus on the ‘mobile first, cloud first’ given by its CEO, Satya Nadella and by shrinking its workforce is taking suitable measures to keep its growth intact. Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital is one of the largest shareholders of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). It has also taken note of the changes happening at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), as is evident from it increasing its stake by 5% to over 74 million shares in the second quarter.
Disclosure: None
