Praesidium Investment Management’s investment strategy brought back some positive returns. In 2016, the fund returned 17.6% net of fees, versus 11.9% for the S&P 500, including dividends. In January and February 2017 the fund was up by 3.8% net of fees. According to its plain brochure, at the end of December 2016, the fund had $1.338 billion in assets under management on a discretionary basis.
Insider Monkey’s flagship strategy identifies the best performing 100 hedge funds at the end of each quarter and invests in their consensus stock picks. This way it is always invested in the best ideas of the best performing hedge funds and is able to generate much higher returns than the market. Since its inception in May 2014, our flagship strategy generated a cumulative return of 96.9%, beating the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by over 40 percentage points (see the details here).
After the fund has made several changes to its equity portfolio during the third quarter, such as adding three new positions and dropping three other long holdings, its portfolio had a value of $1.44 billion. As we already mentioned, the fund doesn’t like to invest in companies that are very common in a large number of hedge funds portfolios, hence at the end of the third quarter, it hasn’t invested in any of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds in Q3 of 2018. The biggest position it held, which counted 1.8 million shares, worth around $190.96 million was in PTC Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTCT). The second biggest stake on September 30, Praesidium Investment Management disclosed in the above mentioned Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ:CSOD), and the position counted 3.20 million shares with a value of $181.86 million.
The two largest new additions to Praesidium Investment Management’s equity portfolio during the third quarter were Talend SA ADR (NASDAQ:TLND) and Teradata Corporation (NYSE:TDC). In a company that provides a variety of open source integration solutions to data-oriented companies, Talend SA ADR, the fund initiated a position that was valued $64.36 million on the account of 965,860 shares. Talend SA ADR has a market cap of $977.44 million, and year to date, its stock has lost 12.42%, currently trading at $32.51. Smart money investors that we track are becoming more bullish on the stock with the number of those with long positions climbing to 22 at the end of Q3 2018, from 15 in Q2 2018. In Teradata Corporation, a company that offers analytics and database-related services and product, the fund established $54.48 million worth a position, on the account of $1.44 million shares purchased.
Praesidium Investment Management said goodbye to three positions in its portfolio during the third quarter. The biggest stake it has decided to dump was in Sabre Corp (NASDAQ:SABR), as the fund sold 2.92 million shares, with a value of $71.86 million. The other two holdings, which the fund dropped, were those in Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) and in Advanced Energy Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEIS), with the fund dumping 172,837 shares that were valued $33.46 million, and 455,040 shares worth around $26.43 million, respectively.
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This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.
