AbbVie Inc (ABBV), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ): Grisanti Brown & Partners’ Latest 13F Shows Focus on Consumer & Healthcare Stocks

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Grisanti Brown & Partners is a multi-billion hedge fund, which focuses on Consumer and Healthcare stocks, managed by Christopher C. Grisanti. It is based in New-York City and was founded in 1999.  Mr. Grisanti is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the owner/co-founder of the fund. The equity portfolio value of Grisanti  Capital amounts to $267.37 million, according to its latest 13F for the end of March. Moreover, the portfolio is diversified across sectors with Consumer Discretionary and Healthcare amassing the largest shares. In this article we will take a look at Grisanti’s largest positions at the end of March, which are represented by AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO), and Medtronic PLC (NYSE:MDT).

AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV)

We track hedge funds and prominent investors because our research has shown that historically their stock picks delivered superior risk-adjusted returns. This is especially true in the small-cap space. The 50 most popular large-cap stocks among hedge funds had a monthly alpha of about 6 basis points per month between 1999 and 2012; however the 15 most popular small-cap stocks delivered a monthly alpha of 80 basis points during the same period. This means investors would have generated 10 percentage points of alpha per year simply by imitating hedge funds’ top 15 small-cap ideas. We have been tracking the performance of these stocks since the end of August 2012 and these stocks beat the market by 80 percentage points (137% return vs. S&P 500′s 57% gain) over the last 32 months (see the details here).

On the first spot is AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), in which the hedge-fund raised its stake by 90% to $23.79 million, which contains 406,385 shares. AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) is a research-based biopharmaceutical company with headquarters in Illinois, United States.  AbbVie is the second-leading drug-maker on the hepatitis C drugs market.  On Tuesday, the company sold $16.7 billion worth of bonds with the goal to finance its $21 billion acquisition of the pharmaceutical company Pharmacyclics, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCYC). This bond sale is the third-largest corporate bond transaction in 2015. Among the largest shareholders of AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) are Samuel Isaly’s Orbimed Advisors and David Shaw’s D. E. Shaw.

In Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), Grisanti held around 207,600 shares valued at $17.53 million. During the first quarter, the position in the $70 billion communications and equipment company by 66,800 shares. Following strong financial results for the first quarter that came above the expectations and showed growth in annual terms, several analysts reiterated their ‘Buy’ ratings on Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) and raised their price targets. Among them are MKM Partners and Jefferies Group, which raised the price target to $94.00 from $92.00 and $88.00 respectively. Daniel Och’s OZ Management, David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital and Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management also disclosed long positions in Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) in their last 13F filings.

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