Seminole Capital is a hedge fund focusing its investments in public equity markets. The fund headquartered in New York is managed by Michael Messner, a graduate of Georgia Tech Institute in Civil Engineering, since it was founded in 1995. With almost $2.23 billion in equity portfolio and a turnover of 89.66% as of the end of March, 50% of the fund’s investments are mostly emphasized in finance and healthcare sectors, among utilities and telecommunications and transport sectors. Further, this article gives more details on Seminole Capital’s top picks according to the data reported in the recent 13F filing: Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM), Allstate Corp (NYSE:ALL), Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:TSN), and Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE:C).
We believe that imitating most popular picks among them can generate market-beating returns. Even though there is an average delay of 45 days for 13F filings, we still managed to obtain a double-digit annual alpha in our backtests for the period between 1999 and 2012. Moreover, since 2012, our system that involves imitating most popular small-cap ideas of hedge funds generated returns north of 130%, beating the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by some 80 percentage points in the last 2.5 years (find more details here).
According to the recent 13F filing, Seminole Capital has cut its stake in Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM) to 1.07 million shares, valued at $165.47 million. The stake was cut by some 437,400 shares during the first quarter. Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM) is one of the largest US companies offering healthcare products and services with a market cap of $42.52 billion and has a dividend yield of 1.60%. For the first quarter of 2015, Anthem posted a net income per share of $3.09 and it expects it to grow to around $9.47 for the full year. Other funds with significant positions in Anthem, Inc. (NYSE:ANTM) are Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital, Donald Yacktman’sYacktman Asset Management and Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management.
Michael Messner slightly reduced his position in Allstate Corporation (NYSE:ALL) to 2.29 million shares valued at $163.17 million, which represents 7.33% of Seminole’s equity portfolio. Allstate Corporation (NYSE:ALL) is one of the Seminole’s picks from the Finance sector and the stock is up by more than 17% over the last 52 weeks, outperforming the Property and Casualty Insurance industry by some 5.0 percentage points. The previous round of 13F filings showed a total of 20 funds among those that we track with long positions in Allstate Corporation (NYSE:ALL) with an aggregate value of over $1.03 billion. Among them, the largest stakes are held by John A. Levine’s Levine Capital Strategies, Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management, and Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group.
During the first three months of 2015, Seminole Capital cut its stake in Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) by 6% on the quarter to 3.37 million shares with a value of $151.51 million. The most admired airline, according to Fortune magazine and the No.1 in the Business Travel News Annual Airline survey for four consecutive years, a first for any airline, Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) has a market cap $35.91 billion and its stock climbed by 19% over the last year. Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE:DAL) is also the most popular airline stock among billionaires that we track with Andreas Halvorsen, Dan Loeb, Daniel Och and several others disclosing long positions in their 13F filings.
Michael Messner found some interest in the Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), increasing his stake by 25% to 2.87 million shares worth $139.72 million, which represent 6.27% of Seminole’s equity portfolio. Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) is one of the largest communication technology companies worldwide with a market cap of $202.06 billion a P/E of 20.80 and sports a yield of 4.40%. Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) also has Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway among its shareholders with a stake that contains 15 million shares as of the end of December.
Another interesting move that Seminole has disclosed in its latest 13F filing is doubling its stake in Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:TSN) to 3.57 million shares valued at $136.85 million. For the first quarter of 2015, the well-known food company posted revenue of $9.98 billion and the EPS of $0.75 cents, which have exceeded analysts’ expectations. Among the funds that we track, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management are also among the shareholders of Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:TSN) Foods.
Michael Messner cut its stake in Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE:C) by some 984,700 shares, which leaves him with 2.31 million shares, valued at $118.93 million. Amid a drop at the beginning of the year, Citigroup’s stock inched down by 1.50% year-to-date. Nevertheless, in the previous round of 13F filings, Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE:C) ranked as the second most favorite stock among hedge funds, trailing Apple. Eagle Capital Management, run by Boykin Curry, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, and Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global are among the hedge funds that we track with stakes in Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE:C) as of the end of 2014.
Disclosure: none
