Adage Capital Ups Stake in Constellium NV (CSTM); Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Among Top Picks

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Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Partners continues to be bullish on Constellium NV (NYSE:CSTM), raising its stake to 5.36 million shares according to a recent filing with the SEC. The fund currently has a 5.15% passive stake after the latest purchase, which was an addition of 201,000 shares on top of the 5.15 million share position it first opened last quarter. In addition to Constellium, we’ll take a look at the fund’s top picks for the fourth quarter, which included Puma Biotechnology Inc (NYSE:PBYI), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).

Phill Gross

Adage Capital Partners was founded in 2001 by Gross and Atchinson, both former Harvard Management Company (HMC) money managers. In fact their fund was started with $3.8 billion in seed money from HMC, which represented a major commitment of nearly 25% of the endowment’s assets at that time. The commitment has paid off, as the fund has outperfomed the S&P 500 index by an average of 3 percentage points annually. The fund maintains a large, diversified portfolio invested across a dozen different sectors, with healthcare stocks leading the way representing 19% of Adage’s portfolio.

Constellium NV (NYSE:CSTM) is not one of those. The  Netherlands’-based company is instead involved in the production of aluminum products for use in the aerospace, automotive, and packaging industries (cans). The company recently announced a 22.5 million Euro expansion to its Decin, Czech Republic plant, to meet increasing demand for its hard alloy bars, which are sold to auto manafucturers throughout Europe. The company expects the expansion to increase its production capacity at the plant by 20% in terms of metric tons produced, to 72,500 by 2018.

Constellium NV (NYSE:CSTM)’s stock suffered a steep slump of more than 50% in the latter part of the year, from a high of $32.20 in the middle of July, to less than $16.00 by late November. That offered a great entry point for Adage which has rebounded 21.42% so far this year, partly on its acquisition of Alabama-based Wise Metals Intermediate Holdings LLC in early January.

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