Apple Inc. (AAPL), Facebook Inc (FB): Billionaire Stephen Mandel’s Top Moves

One of Mandel’s big additions was Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which is now his firm’s 22nd-largest holding. The social network appears to have some serious growth opportunities, and investors are taking notice, with the stock rallying 20% over the last six months. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) reported EPS of $0.17 in the fourth quarter of 2012, which was up 13% from the same quarter last year, and up 41% from the previous quarter.

What’s most impressive about the growth is that advertising revenue rose 43% year over year, and now represents 84% of total revenue. Even with a rapidly growing user base, the company managed to increase average revenue per user by 11% last quarter.

Advertising remains one of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s biggest opportunities. ZenithOptimedia forecasts that online ad spending will overtake newspaper ads in 2013, and eventually overtake both newspaper and magazine ad spending by 2015. Moreover, this will equate to about 25% of total ad spending being spend on the internet by 2015.

I’ll buy that for a dollar

Two of Mandel’s big increases came in the discount retail industry.

Mandel and Lone Pine increased their stake in Dollar General Corp. (NYSE:DG) by 61%, and the company now makes up the 5th spot in their portfolio. Dollar General is the leading U.S. discount retailer, with some 10,000 stores in 40 states.

The company expects to see net sales up 9% in fiscal year 2014 (ending January), which will be driven not only by higher store traffic, but also by higher transaction sizes. Dollar General expects to expand its product offering to alcohol and tobacco products in 2014. This should help counter margin pressures arising from the retailer’s recent offering of faster-selling consumable products.

Mandel also notably increased Lone Pine’s investment in Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) . With a 203% increase in shares owned since the previous quarter, the stock now ranks 11th in Lone Pine’s portfolio.