Billionaire Dan Loeb`s Third Point Looks to Rebound From Poor Year With Top Picks: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA), Amgen, Inc. (AMGN), Dow Chemical Co (DOW)

Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW) remains one of Third Point’s top picks, as it has since they first took a position in it during the fourth quarter of 2013, with 7.73 million shares. They built that to 22 million shares by the middle of 2014, making it their largest holding at the time, and began pressuring the company to make changes, including selling chemicals on the open market. The two sides avoided a proxy fight in late November when they reached an agreement to have four independent directors added to Dow’s Board of Directors.

One of the largest chemicals companies in the world, Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW) primarily supplies goods like polystyrene, polyurethane, polyethylene, polypropylene, and synthetic rubber to other companies, rather than end-users. One of its most notable consumer products is Styrofoam, which are an expanded form of polystyrene foam. The material is commonly used to make disposable food containers like plates and cups, while also being used as insulation.

Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW) was a strong performer throughout much of 2014, before suffering through a poor fourth quarter that was partially responsible for Third Point’s own underperformance, as well as its slide from representing 13.24% of their portfolio to just 9.05%, though the value of Third Point’s equity portfolio did also increase during the quarter to $11.09 billion from $8.71 billion.

Dow Chemical Co (NYSE:DOW) has rebounded strongly in 2015 thanks to an earnings beat in late January that showed strong growth in despite a weakened U.S dollar, and soaring margins in the company’s agricultural sciences business. Dow looks to be making a bigger move into that sector with the early February purchase of Coodetec’s seed business, which will help it expand its Dow AgroSciences’ segment in Brazil.

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