Billionaire Kerr Neilson Trims Exposure To China

Platinum Asset Management reduced its stake in SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) by 9% during the second quarter to bring its total holding in the company down to a tad above 4.2 million shares. As of June 30, this stake was worth $225.06 million. Thanks to the 50% rally in SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA)’s shares during the first two weeks of June, which was caused by a $456 million cash infusion by its CEO Charles Chao at the start of the month, shares of the company are down by only 4.72% year-to-date, when other Chinese stocks have fallen much harder. Like Baidu, the company posted an earnings and revenue beat for the second quarter, on August 18. EPS for the quarter came in at $0.06 on revenue of $213.60 million, while the Street was expecting the company to declare EPS of $0.05 on revenue of $199.78 million. Kenneth Tropin‘s Graham Capital Management continued to remain the largest shareholder of SINA Corp (NASDAQ:SINA) at the end of June among the hedge funds in our database, owning 20.0 million shares of the company.

Even after reducing its stake by 32% to 8.43 million shares, Youku Tudou Inc (ADR)(NYSE:YOKU) emerged as Platinum Asset Management’s eighth-largest holding as of the end of the second quarter, from being the 12th-largest at the end of the first quarter due, to the almost 100% rise in its stock during the April-June period. Although the stock of the company has declined significantly since then, it is still almost 30% higher than where it was at the end of March. The company reported better-than-expected second quarter earnings on August 19. While analysts had expectations of an EPS loss of $0.23 on revenue of $244.24 million, the company posted an EPS loss of $0.18 on revenue of $259.60 million. On August 21, analysts at Brean Capital reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating and $26 price target on the stock, which represents a potential 60% upside to the stock’s current trading price. David Greenspan‘s Slate Path Capital was the largest shareholder of Youku Tudou Inc (ADR)(NYSE:YOKU) among the hedge funds we cover, owning 3.77 million shares of the company at the end of June.

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