First Eagle Investment Management Unveils Its Top Picks

Moving on to Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), First Eagle’s holding of which was decreased by 4% over the quarter to 34.44 million shares valued at $1.40 billion. The stake represented 3.34% of the fund’s portfolio value. As far as the rumor pertaining to the acquisition of Salesforce is concerned, the second contender after Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) was Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), which also has designs on being a force in cloud services, and which has a sizable war chest of $95 billion in cash and short term investments. The $385 billion software giant’s earnings beat in the second fiscal quarter impressed many analysts, who are more hopeful about the company’s future prospects. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was also upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Nomura. The company has quite a few new products in its pipeline including Windows 10, the new web browser Azure, as well as the HoloLens, the first fully untethered holographic computer. According to our database, Jeffrey Ubben’s ValueAct Capital is the largest shareholder of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) as it held some 74.24 million shares, according to its latest filing.

In third place is First Eagle’s bet in the consumer discretionary sector on Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSK), in which it added on to its holding with the addition of about 156,700 shares over the quarter to take the total stake at 23.85 million shares valued at $1.34 billion. This long-term pick made it to the fund’s portfolio in the second quarter of 2006. Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSK)’s dream of forming the largest cable company in America by acquiring Time Warner Cable Inc (NYSE:TWC) has recently been shattered, with the company dropping its $45 billion bid after it was reported that the Federal Communications Commission intended to take the matter to an administrative judge given the monopoly over national pay television and high-speed broadband that the merger would have created. Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSK)’s stock has appreciated by 1.22% year-to-date. Among the other notable shareholders of the media company is Paul Ruddock and Steve Heinz‘s Lansdowne Partners.

Disclosure: None