Steven Owsley’s Madison Street Partners is a long/short, value-oriented, equity hedge fund that focuses on small and mid cap stocks. In the current round of 13F filings, hedge funds are disclosing their equity portfolios as held at the end of the fourth quarter of 2013. Here, in this piece we are going to talk about Madison Street Partners’ top five holdings in terms of value – that Madison Street Partners has held in his equity portfolio at the end of last year.
Out of the top-five, the first on the list is Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA). Madison Street Partners has slightly trimmed its position to 16,715 shares, from the previous amount of 16,725 shares. The value of the stake, however, increased to $13.97 million, from $11.25 million at the end of the third quarter.
This month, Foundation Mastercard, a large shareholder at Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA), has been reducing its position and now holds 120.02 million shares. Tom Russo’s Gardner Russo & Gardner, is the largest shareholder of the hedge funds we track, with 1.0 million shares, worth $674.08 million.
Coming in second is Liberty Global plc – Class C Ordinary Shares (NASDAQ:LBTYK), a $13 billion market cap company. The position amasses almost 155,781 shares, basically flat, in comparison with 155,662 shares held at the end of September. The value of the holding went up to $13.14 million, from $11.74 million.
Spo Advisory Corp, managed by John H. Scully, holds 14.48% of its equity portfolio invested in Liberty Global plc, amassing 13.12 million shares.
Third, on the top-five list, is Visa Inc (NYSE:V) with 56,865 shares, valued at $12.66 million, the holding remaining almost unchanged in comparison with 57,052 shares held at the end of the third quarter.
In the last couple of months insiders have been actively selling shares of the company. Antonio Lucio, an officer at Visa Inc (NYSE:V), sliced his position by 7,163 shares and now holds 46,465 shares. Further Javier Francisco Fernandez-Carbajal, a director at Visa has also significantly trimmed his position by 40,600 shares, with only 3,056 shares remaining in his portfolio.
Fisher Asset Management, led by Ken Fisher, is the largest shareholder, out of the funds in our database, with 3.47 million shares in its equity portfolio, with a reported value of $772.7 million.
Madison Street Partners’s fourth-largest holding is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) with a $11.78 million stake. The fund holds 21,000 shares, which is nearly double the quantity of 11,734 shares it held at the end of September. Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital Lp initiated a position in the company during the third quarter of 2013 disclosing a $1.85 billion stake with 3.88 million shares. Last week, Icahn also posted on Twitter that he added another $500 million in the stock.
Madison Street Partners’s fifth most valuable holding is represented by Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA). The stake was trimmed to 57,568 shares valued at $8.42 million, from 82,300 shares held at the end of the third quarter. Liberty Media represented the largest position of the fund in the third quarter.
Disclosure: none
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