Friday, March 29, 2024
HomenetnetSecret hedge fund shorts revealed

Secret hedge fund shorts revealed

Six hedge fund managers gave their best investment ideas at an exclusive—and private—conference, including new bets against companies.

The investors were part of a session to present one long and one short idea each at Morgan Stanley's "Breakers" conference, put on annually by the bank's hedge-fund-servicing unit at the posh Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

Read MoreHere are the best hedge funds for 2015: Experts

The event Wednesday was private and closed to the media, but a person in attendance shared the recommendations with CNBC.com, along with a summary of the rationales. The picks were:

Aaron Cowen of Suvretta Capital Management: Long pick: Adobe Systems. The company's new subscription-pricing model should work and will help improve profitability, but that isn't being priced in to analyst estimates. Short pick: Target. Extra consumer cash from low oil prices will boost sales, but it will help low-cost retailers like Family Dollar Stores more. Margins are high compared to Wal-Mart Stores and there's no growth in the number of stores. Target price for the stock is in the high $50s or low $60s.

Daniel Lewis of Orange Capital: Long pick: Amaya Gaming. Amaya's purchase of PokerStars gives it leading market share. It also has low taxes from its base on Isle of Man. New PokerStars management is good and the stock is worth more than $50 a share. Short pick: MGM China. Trends in Las Vegas have been good, making it relatively cheap compared to Chinese gambling hub Macau (as a pair trade, Lewis also likes regular MGM stock long).

Kurt Billick of Bocage Capital: Long pick: Lundin Mining. The copper, zinc and nickel miner is poised to benefit from recent investments in its business. Short pick: natural gas. It's still overvalued at $3 per million British thermal unit given there's not enough storage in the U.S. Prices will fall below $2 per million Btu.

Glen Kacher of Light Street Capital: Long pick: 21Vianet. The company is growing well and is trading at a discount to Equinix but with a much higher growth rate. Short pick: Youku Tudou. Competitors are being run as loss leaders to attract new users, making it difficult for Youku, the YouTube of China, to compete and be profitable. The bull case is it will be bought out by Alibaba, but it won't because it would have to consolidate the losses.

Anthony Bozza of Lakewood Capital Management: Long pick: American Capital. The business development corporation trades below net asset value. It has a corporate restructuring later this year and will split into multiple businesses. There's a more than 40 percent to 50 percent upside. Short pick: Arista Networks. The company faces steep competition from Cisco and others, which is destroying margins.

John Pinkel of Indus Capital Partners: Long pick: PICC Property & Casualty. Premiums should rise in China, up 15 percent a year for the next 10 years. Short pick: Belle International. Margins of 20 percent on footwear are too high, and there's lots of competition from Alibaba's Tmall and other e-commerce companies.

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