HealthInvest Partners AB, led by Anders Hallberg and Carl Bennet, was founded back in 2006 with the purpose of investing in healthcare companies that are leaders in their market segments. Hence, it goes without saying that the fund’s strategy avoids risky bets on stocks, whose companies are in the early stages of clinical experiments and possess high risk. The fund employs a wide range of in-house research techniques to select companies which are trading at a discount or show stable free cash flows, since its managers prefer to target long-term investments. Thus, while HealthInvest Partners generally prefers small-cap stocks, as Anders Hallberg and Carl Bennet believe in the informational advantage gained through investing in less well-known companies, it’s not surprising to find that their top picks as of June 30 are actually in large-cap stocks. We’ll look at those top three positions of the fund, which are in Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE), Gilead Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:GILD), and Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM), in this article, and attempt to discern what makes them stand out to the fund.
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We pay attention to hedge funds’ moves because our research has shown that hedge funds are extremely talented at picking stocks on the long side of their portfolios. It is true that hedge fund investors have been underperforming the market in recent years. However, this was mainly because hedge funds’ short stock picks lost a ton of money during the bull market that started in March 2009. Hedge fund investors also paid an arm and a leg for the services that they received. We have been tracking the performance of hedge funds’ 15 most popular stock picks in real time since the end of August 2012. These stocks have returned 139% since then and outperformed the S&P 500 Index by around 81 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe it is important to pay attention to hedge fund sentiment; we also don’t like paying huge fees.
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According to the fund’s latest 13F filings for the June 30 reporting period, it holds around 846,000 shares of Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) valued at $28.98 million. Over the second quarter the $210.96 billion pharmaceutical giant, which is engaged in the development and manufacturing of medical products, has lost around 3.6% of its value. Nevertheless, HealthInvest saw an opportunity in such a price movement and added an additional 60.22% to its previous position. The company is scheduled to report its second quarter earnings on July 28, and analysts expect the company to show EPS and revenue declines of 10% and 8% respectively on a year-over-year basis. Within our database, Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management tops the list of the largest shareholders of Pfizer Inc (NYSE:PFE) which have filed for the June 30 reporting period, owning 31.82 million shares valued at $1.07 billion at the end of the second quarter.
The next large-cap up for review is Gilead Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:GILD), in which HealthInvest reported having some 240,300 shares with a market value of $27.11 million at the halfway point of the year. Gilead Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:GILD) is another biopharmaceutical monster, with a $165.82 billion market cap. During this year alone the stock of the company has returned some 19.7% and the mean analysts’ estimates still imply a 10.36% upside from the $112.83 at which the equity is currently changing hands. Donald Chiboucis’ Columbus Circle Investors held 4.17 million shares of Gilead Sciences Inc (NASDAQ:GILD) worth $409.03 million as of March 31.
Finally, HealthInvest finished the latest 13F reporting period with 170,700 shares of Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM), worth $25.75 million. Over the second quarter of the year, the fund added around 55.61% to its position in the respected stock. Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM) traded sideways during much of the April-June period, yet managed to close in the green by 6.28%. Since then, the price has declined by some 8.2% however, following the news that it would buy CIGNA Corporation (NYSE:CI) for about $54.2 billion, leading to large net money outflows from the stock. Larry Robbins’s Glenview Capital led the list of the largest equity holders of Anthem Inc (NYSE:ANTM) as of March 31, holding 4.89 million shares worth $755.62 million.
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