VCA Inc. (WOOF) and Teradyne Inc. (TER): Two of Billionaire Larry Robbins’ Top Small-Cap Picks

Robbins’ hedge fund increased its equity stake in Teradyne Inc. (NYSE:TER) by 559,600 shares during the quarter, increasing Glenview Capital’s overall position in the company to 13.02 million shares valued at $245.47 million. Just recently, Teradyne, a developer and supplier of automatic test equipment, announced its plans to expand into robotic manufacturing by acquiring Universal Robots, a private Danish company. According to Teradyne’s CEO Mark Jagiela, Universal Robots is the technology and sales leader in the rapidly developing collaborative robot market; hence, the purchase should set Teradyne up for promising future growth in the upcoming years. The market seems to feel so, with Teradyne’s stock gaining almost 14% over the last two months. Panayotis Takis Sparaggis’ Alkeon Capital Management still holds a sizable stake in Teradyne Inc. (NYSE:TER), owning 1.99 million shares at the end of the most recent quarter.

Lastly, Glenview Capital has opened a long position in Manitowoc Company Inc. (NYSE:MTW), with Robbins acquiring 8.61 million shares during the first quarter, valued at approximately $185.72 million. Those shares rose by nearly 4% over the last four months to $19.82 per share, giving the company a market cap of $2.7 billion. Manitowoc Company has recently announced that it plans to spin-off its Crane and Foodservice business into two self-governing publicly-traded companies. It is expected that the spin-off will be beneficial for Manitowoc, as the move will result in two industry leaders with distinctive and focused capabilities. Alan Fournier’s Pennant Capital Management also purchased a huge stake, of more than 8.15 million shares in Manitowoc Company Inc. (NYSE:MTW) during the first quarter.

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