Bill Ackman and Scott Ferguson Are Investing In The Same Stocks

Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) was another stock in which the  two fund managers found common ground. Neither Bill Ackman, with his 20.55 million shares, nor Scott Ferguson with his 870,000 shares, made changes to their stakes during the quarter. This might possibly be since the stock has barely moved this year and is up by just 0.4% year-to-date. Over the past year however the picture is a little bit brighter for the stock, which and has moved up by 10.8%.The Pennsylvania-based chemical and gas producer posted its earnings for the first quarter on April 30, beating analysts’ expectations by $0.01 with its earnings of $1.55 per share. Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) announced earlier in June that it was about to launch two new defoamers, for sale initially on the North American market. Also bullish in Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) is Eric Chen of Antipodean Advisors, who increased his stake by 43% to 498,000 shares during the first quarter.

Allergan PLC (NYSE:AGN) is another pharmaceutical company that interests both Ackman and Ferguson. Scott Ferguson had a stake of 800,000 shares in the pharmaceutical company, which was left unchanged during the first quarter. Bill Ackman on the other hand opened a new stake of 1.35 million shares in Allergan PLC (NYSE:AGN) during the first quarter, after previously teaming up with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (NYSE:VRX) to try and acquire the company. Two weeks ago it was announced that Actavis Plc (NYSE:AGN), which acquired Allergan PLC in March 2015, would start to trade under the name Allergan Plc (NYSE:AGN) from June 15, leaving its old ticker ACT behind. Whatever the name of the stock is, the results are appealing, with a 21.3% return year-to-date and 44.0% during the last year. Allergan is clearly not through with acquisitions just yet, since it announced on June 17 that it will buy Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:KYTH). Kythera may be the driving force in sales that Allergan needs, since it hasn’t booked profits since its IPO in 2012. Someone who has great faith in that is Philippe Jabre and his fund Jabre Capital Partners, since he took a stake in Allergan during the first quarter consisting of 21.00 million shares.

Disclosure: None