Giovine Capital Group’s Keeps Betting on Consumer Discretionary Sector; Still Bullish on Apple Inc (AAPL)

Thomas A Giovine is the CEO of Giovine Capital Group which was founded in 1998. Tom Giovine previously worked at Morgan Stanley and follows an activist strategy at Giovine Capital. In the latest 13F filing, Giovine Capital revealed an equity portfolio valued at $182.81 million, with a total of 49 positions. The fund has invested 21% of its portfolio in consumer discretionary, 16% in industrial and 15% in information technology sectors. According to the latest 13F filing, the largest positions of Giovine Capital Group are represented by Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), Masonite International Corp (NYSE:DOOR), Dish Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH), and Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).

AAPL, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)

Giovine Capital Group is one of more than 700 hedge funds that we track as part of our small-cap strategy. Our research has shown that imitating a portfolio of 15 most popular small-cap picks among them can generate on average around 1.0 percentage points in excess of the S&P 500 Total Return Index’s monthly return. Moreover, these small-cap picks had an alpha of around 80 basis points per month, compared with 50 most popular large-cap stocks among hedge-funds that had a monthly alpha of about six basis points. This strategy managed to post gains over 137% in the last 2.5 years since we started following it in real time, outperforming the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by over 80 percentage points (read more details here).

On the first spot is Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), in which Giovine Capital Group disclosed a $7.91 million position that contains 69,601 shares, which represent 4.33% of the fund’s equity portfolio. The company has a market cap of $144.4 billion and its stock gained almost 40% during the last 52 weeks. The Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), the world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer, has the intention to introduce Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s Apple Pay at its more than 2,200 stores. Following the introduction of Apple Pay, Home Depot will become the largest retailer that uses Apple’s mobile payment system in the US. Aside from Giovine Capital, other shareholders of Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD) include Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management, John Armitage’s Egerton Capital Limited and Cliff Asness’s Aqr Capital Management.

The second largest position in Giovine Capital Group’ equity portfolio, at the end of the March was Masonite International Corp (NYSE:DOOR), in which the fund owns 114,965 shares, worth $7.73 million. For the first quarter of 2015, Masonite International Corp (NYSE:DOOR) reported net sales of $434.5 million, an increase of 2.8% on the year, include a 4.9% negative impact of foreign exchange. The company’s net loss in the first three months of 2015 expanded to $1.03 per share. Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Management, Joel Ramin’s 12 West Capital Management and Eric Edidin and Josh Lobel’s Archer Capital Management are also among Masonite International Corp (NYSE:DOOR)’s shareholders.

Next in line is Dish Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH), one of Mr. Giovine’s picks from the consumer discretionary sector. In Dish Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH), the investor reported holding almost 106,800 shares valued at $7.48 million. The company, a satellite TV provider, with 13.98 million customers, reported for 2014, and net income of $945 million, equal to $2.04 diluted earnings per share, versus $908 million ($1.76 per share) a year earlier. Other funds that have significant positions in Dish Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) include Eagle Capital Management, run by Boykin Curry and Mario Gabelli’s GAMCO Investors and York Capital Management, managed by James Dinan.

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) represents Giovine Capital Group’s fourth largest position, as the hedge fund disclosed holding 57,034 shares worth $7.09 million. Recently, the tech-giant, which owns one of the most profitable businesses, announced its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2015. As the Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s CEO Tim Cook said: “We are thrilled by the continued strength of iPhone, Mac and the App Store, which drove our best March quarter results ever”. The company reported a quarterly revenue growth of 27.08% on the year to $58 billion, while its net income surged by 32.73% to $13.57 billion. Among the funds we track, Carl Icahn, Ken Fisher and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson are among the shareholders with large positions in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Disclosure: none