Edinburgh Partners is a long-term, value oriented, Scotland-based hedge fund founded in 2003 by Sandy Nairn. The Edinburgh Partners’ CEO holds a BSc and PhD in Economics from the University of Strathclyde/Scottish Business School, is an Associate of the UK Society of Investment Professionals in the UK and has the CFA qualification. The value of the fund’s equity portfolio represents $859 million, as of the end of March, and it is mainly focused on International, Global, EAFE, Emerging and European Market equities. According to the latest 13F filing, the biggest positions of Edinburgh Partners are represented by Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL), Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE:JCI) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), respectively.
Edinburghh Partners held 37 long positions in companies with a market cap of at least $1.0 billion as of the end of 2014. These holdings had a weighted average return of 0.7% during the first quarter and underperformed the market by nearly 2.0 percentage points.
We track hedge funds and prominent investors because our research has shown that historically their stock picks delivered superior risk-adjusted returns. This is especially true in the small-cap space. The 50 most popular large-cap stocks among hedge funds had a monthly alpha of about 6 basis points per month between 1999 and 2012; however the 15 most popular small-cap stocks delivered a monthly alpha of 80 basis points during the same period. This means investors would have generated 10 percentage points of alpha per year simply by imitating hedge funds’ top 15 small-cap ideas. We have been tracking the performance of these stocks since the end of August 2012 and these stocks beat the market by 80 percentage points (137% return vs. S&P 500’s 57% gain) over the last 32 months (see the details here).
Edinburgh Partners’ largest position is represented by Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL) with 2.30 million shares, down by 20% on the quarter, valued at $109 million, according to its latest 13F filing. Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL) also represents the largest position in Platinum Asset Management’s equity portfolio run by Kerr Neilson with 9,5 million shares and William B. Gray’s Orbis Investment Management with 6,5 million shares as of the end of 2014. The stock of the $37 billion leisure travel company gained 24% during the last 52 weeks. Carnival Corp (NYSE:CCL) has recently announced plans to acquire nine new ships in the period between 2019 and 2022.
The second largest position in Edinburgh Partners’ equity portfolio, at the end of first quarter of 2015 was Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE:JCI) with a market cap of $107 million. The total number of shares held by Edinburgh Partners in the company has decreased by around 474,600 (21,79%), during the first three months of 2015 to 2.18 million shares. Comparing with the previous quarter, Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE:JCI) ranked up two positions in Edinburgh Partners’ equity portfolio. The company has reported its financial results for the first quarter with a 3% annual drop in revenue to $9.20 billion and a net income of $529 million, equal to $0.80 per share, from $261 million, or $0.39 per share a year earlier. Jim Simons, Israel Englander and Mario Gabelli are among billionaire investors that are bullish on Johnson Controls Inc (NYSE:JCI) and own substantial positions in the company.
The Edinburgh Partners’ investment in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s equity portfolio has decreased by 22.33% in the first quarter to 2.61 million shares valued at $107.97 million as the stock declined by 11.84% during the same period. Yesterday, Microsoft Corp reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2015 with revenue up by 6.5% on the year to $21.73 billion. The company’s operating income and diluted earnings per share for the period amounted to $6.59 billion and $0.61 per share, respectively, versus $6.97 billion and $0.68 a year earlier. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) returned $7.5 billion to its shareholders in share repurchases and dividends during the first quarter of 2015. The financial results note the impact of restructuring and integration expenses on the Microsoft Corp’s financial performance. Other investors with large positions in Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) include ValueAct Capital managed by Jeffrey Ubben, followed by Jean-Marie Eveillard’s First Eagle Investment Management and Eagle Capital Management run by Boykin Curry.
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