Billionaire Paul Singer’s Long-Term Picks

#3 Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG)

– Shares Owned by Elliott Management (as of September 30): 20 Million

– Value of Holding (as of September 30): $382.9 Million

Elliott Management initiated a stake in Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG) during the second quarter of 2014 and immediately went activist on the company. However, unlike other activist situations, things soon turned in favor of Elliott as Interpublic Group of Companies Inc (NYSE:IPG) reached a settlement with the fund in February last year by nominating three new members to its Board and forming a new finance committee to focus on margin expansion.

All these changes seem to be having a positive effect on Interpublic Group of Companies, as its stock appreciated by 23% during the final quarter of 2015. However, in addition to rising so swiftly, the stock currently sports a respectable dividend yield of over 2%. For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, analysts estimate the company to report EPS of $0.62 on revenue of $2.19 billion. For the same quarter last year it delivered EPS of $0.57 on revenue of $2.21 billion.

On December 18, analysts at Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ and also increased their price target on it to $27 from $24. Though the number of funds covered by Insider Monkey that were long in Interpublic Group of Companies Inc declined by five to 36 during the third quarter, the number of billionaire investors we track that reported owning a stake in the company increased by two to nine during the same period. With ownership of over 21.4 million shares of Interpublic Group of Companies, Jeffrey Tannenbaum‘s Fir Tree was the largest shareholder of the company at the end of September among the funds tracked by us.