Dmitry Balyasny Tripled His Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Position

Dmitry Balyasny is the founder of Balyasny Asset Management. He started his trading career at Schonfeld Securities in 1994. Balyasny’s Atlas Global fund returned 20+% average annual returns since its inception in 2002. The multistrategy hedge fund firm has around $2 Billion in AUM and specializes in long/short investing. Balyasny’s name was among the hedge funds being examined for illegal insider trading but no charges brought so far.

Today, Balyasny disclosed a 5.92% stake in Keryx Biopharmaceuticals. At the end of December, Balyasny had 1.4 Million shares of KERX in its portfolio. He tripled his position in KERX through purchases made in late February and early March. The stock was trading below $4 around that time. Currently KERX’s latest price is $4.59. Balyasny gained more than 15% in less than two months from this transaction.

Dmitry Balyasny hired a healthcare team from Barclays in 2009. This is probably one of their stock picks. There were a couple of funds with very small holdings in KERX. Thomas Bailard’s Bailard Inc had 210 thousand shares and Brian Stark’s Stark Investments had 88 thousand shares at the end of December.