Cerberus Discloses Large Activist Position in Blue Bird Corp (BLBD); Check Out the Fund’s Other Top Picks

Of those positions at the end of 2014, little has changed at the top. In fact the top three positions remained unchanged from the last time we profiled Cerberus Capital’s portfolio, two quarters ago. Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY) remained by far the most lucrative holding of Cerberus, consisting of the same 41.52 million shares that it held since it was opened in that second quarter. The value of those shares decreased during those six months however, from $992.66 million to $980.62 million. As with Blue Bird, Cerberus was a private owner of Ally Financial before the company went public in April 2014, having purchased a 51% stake in the company in 2006. The stake in Ally totaled 89.49% of the company’s public equity portfolio at the end of the year.

Cerberus Capital’s second most valuable position was in BlueLinx Holdings Inc. (NYSE:BXC), with the fund possessing 47.14 million shares worth $54.68 million at the end of 2014. As with Ally, the value of those shares has decreased slightly over the past six months, as shares of BlueLink have slipped 21.09%, dragging it down to all-time low levels at just $1.13. BlueLinx Holdingds operates primarily through its wholly-owned subsidiary company BlueLinx Corporation, which operates in the home building supplies sector, dealing in both structural and specialty products.

Lastly is DHT Holdings Inc (NYSE:DHT), which has remained the third-most valuable position in Cerberus’ public equity portfolio with 6.80 million shares valued at $49.68 million. That was down 11% from the end of the third quarter after two consecutive quarters in which Cerberus was quite bullish on the stock, increasing its position by 75% and 94% during the second and third quarters respectively. DHT Holdings had a very strong finish to 2014 and early into 2015 before a swoon. The crude oil tanker company weathered the oil price crisis fairly well, considering the extreme difficulty other companies in the sector have faced, and in fact has been producing strong growth in revenues and earnings over the past year. Cerberus was the second largest investor in DHT out of our tracked funds, after Canyon Capital Advisors, managed by Joshua Friedman and Mitchell Julis, which held 8.98 million shares at the end of 2014.

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