Roberto Mignone‘s Bridger Management is a fund with around $2.0 billion in assets, one that is focused on healthcare stocks, which represent nearly one-half of the fund’s equity portfolio. In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bridger disclosed acquiring some 263,300 shares of TrovaGene Inc (NASDAQ:TROV). The securities were bought in three transactions at an average price of $5.36 per share. Following the acquisition, Bridger owns 2.85 million shares of the company, which represent over 15% of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Mr. Mignone is a Harvard Business School graduate, who started his career in investing at John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital. Currently he prefers to maintain a relatively small portfolio, concluding that too large a portfolio can be a drag on the fund’s performance. Therefore, in its last 13F filing, Bridger Management disclosed an equity portfolio valued at $1.60 billion. Even though around half of the equity portfolio is represented by healthcare stocks, Mr. Mignone also invests significant amounts of capital in Services, Technology, and Financial stocks.
Bridger Management has been holding shares of TrovaGene Inc (NASDAQ:TROV) since the end of June 2013. The stake is passive by nature and since first disclosing ownership of shares, Mr. Mignone raised his exposure to the biotech stock to 2.14 million shares by the end of the third quarter of 2013, and stood pat since, while the stock lost almost 14% during that time. Trovagene is a development-stage company that is engaged in the development and sale of urine-based nucleic acid diagnostic technology for use in disease detection and monitoring. The company has not reported any revenue since going public in 2009 and in its last results, for the third quarter of 2014, the company showed a net loss of $0.28 per share, down from a loss of $0.25 per share a year ago.
Since TrovaGene Inc (NASDAQ:TROV) has a very small market capitalization and is currently in development stage, investors are careful around the stock. In fact, among over 700 funds that we track, Bridger Management and Israel Englander’s Millennium Management are the only two funds that hold more or less meaningful positions in Trovagene. Millennium Management disclosed ownership of 535,786 shares of the company in its latest 13F filing. However, it should be noted that in the equity portfolios of both investors, TrovaGene Inc (NASDAQ:TROV) holdings represent a tiny portion of the overall portfolio value.
Bridger’s largest position in terms of value is represented by The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO), in which the fund disclosed ownership of 3.13 million shares, valued at $86.64 million. The fund re-opened a stake with 1.89 million shares during the second quarter after closing a 630,000 share stake in the previous quarter, and after the stock lost around 4.7%, Mr. Mignone increased the stake by another 70% during the third quarter and by a further 1% in the last three months of 2014.
The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO) is a pharmaceutical company engaged in the delivering of medicines for the treatment of critical care patients. The company has reported growth in revenue in the last three years, but its EBITDA has declined from $101 million in 2012, to $11 million last year. Among other shareholders of The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO) is Steven Cohen, Chuck Royce, and Israel Englander. Mr. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management initiated a stake in the company during the fourth quarter, holding 221,600 shares. Mr. Englander’s Millennium Management upped its stake by 40% to 658,900 shares, while Mr. Royce’s Royce & Associates cut its position by 31% to 4.65 million shares.
Another large position in Bridger’s equity portfolio is represented by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA), a $55 billion pharmaceutical and drug company. The fund held 1.49 million shares of the company, up by 23% on the quarter, the value of the stake amounting to $85.40 million. Among 737 funds that we track, 67 investors reported ownership of Teva Pharmaceutical shares in the previous round of 13F filings, including 10 funds managed by billionaires. Sean Cullinan’s Point State Capital is the largest shareholder of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) among funds that we track, disclosing ownership of 8.09 million shares in its last 13F filing. Billionaire George Soros is also invested in the pharmaceutical company, holding 4.86 million shares as of the end of 2014, the $279.50 million stake being the third-largest in Soros Fund Management‘s equity portfolio.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:TEVA) has the largest sales of generic drugs in terms of revenue of any pharmaceutical company in the world. In its latest financial report, the company posted a slight decrease in revenue to $20.27 billion for 2014, from $20.31 billion a year earlier, mainly impacted by currency fluctuations. However, the company’s earnings grew strongly to $3.56 per diluted share from $1.49 a year earlier. The revenue growth comes on the back of significant cost cutting initiatives adopted by the company, which also softened the decline in sales.
Bridger’s third-largest holding in terms of value is represented by KAR Auction Services Inc (NYSE:KAR), a provider of a used cars auction service in the US. The fund kept the stake unchanged at 2.40 million shares worth $83.16 million at the end of 2014. In the last quarter of 2014, the company reported a profit of $0.35 per share, versus a loss of $0.13 per share a year earlier. Its revenue also increased to around $601 million from $541 million. For the full year, the company’s earnings surged to $1.19 per share from $0.48 per share a year earlier on revenue of $2.37 billion, up from $1.82 billion a year earlier. For 2015, KAR Auction Services Inc (NYSE:KAR) expects its earnings to land in a range between $1.40 and $1.55 per share. Billionaire Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors is another investor bullish on KAR Auction Services Inc (NYSE:KAR) raising his stake by 15% to 3.38 million shares during the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the company’s stock has gained some 7.7% since the beginning of 2015.
Disclosure: None
