Billionaire Dan Loeb Reveals His Top Stock Picks; Allergan plc (AGN) Disappoints

#4. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

– Number of shares owned by Third Point LLC as of March 31: 700,000 Class A Shares

– Value of Third Point LLC’s holding as of March 31: $534.03 Million

The New York-based hedge fund acquired a new stake of 700,000 Class A shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) during the first three months of 2016, which were worth $534.03 million at the end of March. The new position made up 4.9% of Third Point’s portfolio at quarter-end. One analyst at Bernstein believes Alphabet’s online video site, YouTube, is on track to become one of the world’s largest media businesses, evaluating the business in the range of $67 billion to $86 billion based on time spent on the platform. The analyst said YouTube is “among the main drivers of the migration of brand advertising dollars from TV to the Web”. The Bernstein analyst also seems puzzled by Alphabet’s choice to focus on drones, self-driving cars and other projects instead of channeling more capital into developing what could become one of the most valued media properties in the world. Alphabet’s Class A shares are down 7% since the beginning of 2016. Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global owns 2.05 Class A shares of Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) as of March 31.

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#3. Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW)

– Number of shares owned by Third Point LLC as of March 31: 25.00 Million

– Value of Third Point LLC’s holding as of March 31: $1.27 Billion

Third Point LLC owns exactly 25.00 million shares of Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW) as of the end of the first quarter of 2016, 250,000 shares less than at the end of the December quarter. The reshuffled stake was valued at $1.27 billion on March 31, representing 11.7% of the fund’s portfolio. The investment community already knows that Dow Chemical and E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Co (NYSE:DD) agreed on an all-stock merger that will definitely reshape the chemical and agricultural industries. The merged company, to be called DowDuPont, plans to achieve a target of $3 billion in cost synergies before splitting the behemoth into three independent companies, which would include a pure-play agriculture company, a pure-play material science company, and an innovation-driven specialty products company. According to the quarterly letter to investors mentioned above, Third Point believes “there is potential for operational improvement at Dow that would be incremental to the $3 billion announced synergy target”, with the New York-based fund claiming that “$5 billion of earnings improvement could be unlocked”. Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital reported ownership of 7.24 million shares in Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW) through its latest 13F.

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