John Burbank is the manager of Passport Capital, a global investment firm located in San Francisco. With a focus on macroeconomic analysis and fundamental research conducted on a company-by-company basis, Passport Capital specializes in areas such as Agriculture, Basic Materials, Energy and Financial Services among others.
Let’s take a look at John Burbank’s top five bets:
The largest stake is held by Passport Capital in Cytec Industries Inc (NYSE:CYT). The position involves 2.6 million shares and is worth $187.8 million. During the second quarter, the hedge fund dumped about 958,500 shares. The stock of Cytec Industries Inc (NYSE:CYT) has returned over 15% since the beginning of the year. In addition to John Burbank’s hedge fund, there are some other noticeable investors that hold shares of Cytec Industries Inc (NYSE:CYT) such as Steven Cohen’s Sac Capital Advisors, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management and Cliff Asness’ Aqr Capital Management.
The second-largest pick in Passport’s 13F portfolio is VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS), in which the hedge fund disclosed ownership of 8.5 million shares, worth about $107 million. The previous value of the VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS)’s stake in Passport’s portfolio involved 9.6 million shares, and was worth about $105.1 million. The stock of VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS) has a year-to-date return near -5%.
The next two companies on our list are Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI) and McGraw Hill Financial Inc (NYSE:MHFI). Passport’s position in Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI) amounts to 2.7 million shares, worth $102.3 million, up by 140,843 shares over the quarter.
In McGraw Hill Financial Inc (NYSE:MHFI), the hedge fund holds a $101.3 million stake, which contains 1.9 million shares, an increase of 550,295 shares since the end of March. Both Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI) and McGraw Hill Financial Inc (NYSE:MHFI)’s stocks have exhibited positive returns since the beginning of the year, of about 5.3% and 14.2% respectively. Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI)’s forward P/E ratio amounts to 23.6x and its PEG ratio is about 0.9. McGraw Hill Financial Inc (NYSE:MHFI)’s stock trades at a forward P/E of about 17 and its PEG ratio is slightly above 1.2.
The fifth position is held by Chinese-based Internet-search provider Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU). John Burbank’s stake in Baidu.com, Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ:BIDU) contains 894,290 shares, and is worth $84.6 million. It represents a new position in Passport Capital’s equity portfolio. By this purchase, Burbank joined Chase Coleman, the manager of Tiger Global Management Llc, and the manager of Citadel Investment Group, Ken Griffin, among other investors, in the search engine giant.
On the whole, Passport Capital has a large equity portfolio which contains 132 positions, up from 129 positions disclosed at the end of the first quarter. The market value of the 13F portfolio amounts to over $3.0 billion, higher than the previous value of $2.5 billion. We will keep you updated regarding all of the latest moves made by John Burbank and Passport Capital.
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