Billionaire Steven Cohen Buys Stake in the Week’s Hottest Biotech Stock, Plus 3 Other Moves

It’s common knowledge that hedge fund managers are highly-informed and diligent investors, so their bullish moves may represent a reliable confirmation of a retail investor’s interest in a particular company. By examining hedge funds’ 13G, 13D, and Form 4 filings, investors can figure out what these investment vehicles think of their high-conviction ideas. These three types of filings usually allow investors to track hedge funds’ entire equity investment process (from the initial investment in a company through the cash out process of that investment). With that in mind, the following article discusses four filings submitted with the SEC by several highly-successful hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey.

Our backtests that covered the period between 1999 and 2012, showed that following the 15 most popular small-caps among hedge funds can help a retail investor beat the market by an average of 95 basis points per month (see more details here).

In a newly-amended 13D filing, Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors reported owning 4.40 million shares of Atlas Energy Group LLC (NYSE:ATLS), which account for 15.4% of the company’s total shares. The stake includes 2.50 million shares that may be acquired by Mr. Cooperman upon conversion of 800,000 shares of the company’s Series A Preferred Units, which were acquired in February 2015. As revealed by an accompanying Form 4 filed on behalf of the widely-known money manager, Mr. Cooperman has sold 953,639 shares of Atlas Energy Group since last Wednesday, at prices that ranged from $0.44 to $0.58 per share.

Atlas Energy Group LLC (NYSE:ATLS) is a limited liability company whose operations primarily consist of its ownership interests in several entities: 100% of the general partner Class A units, all incentive distribution rights and roughly 23.6% limited partner interest in Atlas Resource Partners L.P. (NYSE:ARP), which is an independent producer of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL); an 80% general partner interest and 2.1% limited partner interest in Atlas Growth Partners L.P.; and a 15.9% general partner interest and 12.0% limited partner interest in Lightfoot Capital Partners, which invests in energy-related businesses and assets. There were four hedge funds in our system invested in Atlas Energy Group LLC at the end of December 2015, which aggregately amassed 19.20% of its outstanding shares. Michael Kao’s Akanthos Capital Management LLC owns 1.06 million shares of Atlas Energy Group LLC (NYSE:ATLS) as of December 31.

The final two pages of this article discuss three separate filings submitted with the SEC by several hedge fund vehicles monitored by our team.