Townsquare Media Inc, Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc.: Tricadia Capital Increases Stake; Sarissa Capital Enters New Position

Sarissa Capital Management is a Greenwich, Connecticut-based hedge fund that invests primarily in securities belonging to the health care industry. The firm was founded in 2012 and is currently managed by Alexander J. Denner. Before launching Sarissa Capital, Mr. Denner gained experience as portfolio manager at Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global, where he was employed until 2006. The manager then went on to serve as Senior Managing Director at Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital LP, until he decided to found his own fund.

Sarissa Capital has an equity portfolio valued at around $258 million, with its stake in Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARIA) accounting for around 26% of its total holdings. The fund has been increasing its exposure to the company for some time now and currently holds 6.87% of Ariad Pharmaceuticals’ outstanding stock. In addition to this stock, the fund’s other top picks as of its latest 13F filing were Quest Diagnostics Inc (NYSE:DGX) and Bio-Reference Laboratories Inc (NASDAQ:BRLI).

Mr. Denner’s firm recently entered a new position in Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEGR), a stock that has lost around 56% of its value over the past year. Despite its poor performance during this time, numerous institutional investors have been buying up shares as of late. It seems the firm is currently undervalued and trading at a discount, while it continues to hold intrinsic value. Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management for example disclosed an increase of 792,200 to its position in the company in a 13G Form filed after the third quarter, which now amounts to 1.54 million shares. Matt Sirovich and Jeremy Mindich’s Scopia Capital also continues to bet big on the stock. The firm is the largest institutional investor in Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AEGR) amongst the hedge funds we track, with a position of 5.1 million shares.

Disclosure: none.