Do Hedge Funds Love ClubCorp Holdings Inc (MYCC)?

The successful funds run by legendary investors such as Dan Loeb and David Tepper make hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves and their investors by spending enormous resources doing research on small cap stocks that big investment banks don’t follow. Because of their pay structures, they have strong incentive to do the research necessary to beat the market. That’s why we pay close attention to what they think in small cap stocks. In this article, we take a closer look at ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC) from the perspective of those successful funds.

ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC) shares didn’t see a lot of action during the third quarter. Overall, hedge fund sentiment was unchanged. The stock was in 18 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. At the end of this article we will also compare MYCC to other stocks including AveXis Inc (NASDAQ:AVXS), Trina Solar Limited (ADR) (NYSE:TSL), and New Senior Investment Group Inc (NYSE:SNR) to get a better sense of its popularity.

At Insider Monkey, we’ve developed an investment strategy that has delivered market-beating returns over the past 12 months. Our strategy identifies the 100 best-performing funds of the previous quarter from among the collection of 700+ successful funds that we track in our database, which we accomplish using our returns methodology. We then study the portfolios of those 100 funds using the latest 13F data to uncover the 30 most popular mid-cap stocks (market caps of between $1 billion and $10 billion) among them to hold until the next filing period. This strategy delivered 18% gains over the past 12 months, more than doubling the 8% returns enjoyed by the S&P 500 ETFs.

What have hedge funds been doing with ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC)?

Heading into the fourth quarter of 2016, a total of 18 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, unchanged from the second quarter of 2016. Below, you can check out the change in hedge fund sentiment towards MYCC over the last 5 quarters. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists an “upper tier” of noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Joshua Friedman and Mitchell Julis’ Canyon Capital Advisors has the number one position in ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC), worth close to $37.3 million, accounting for 1.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second largest stake is held by FrontFour Capital Group, led by Stephen Loukas, David A. Lorber, Zachary George, holding a $25.4 million position; 5.9% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining peers that hold long positions consist of Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management, and Stephen Loukas, David A. Lorber and Zachary George’s FrontFour Capital Group. We should note that none of these hedge funds are among our list of the 100 best performing hedge funds which is based on the performance of their 13F long positions in non-microcap stocks.

Due to the fact that ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC) has weathered a decline in interest from the entirety of the hedge funds we track, logic holds that there was a specific group of fund managers who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. At the top of the heap, Doug Gordon, Jon Hilsabeck and Don Jabro’s Shellback Capital dumped the biggest stake of all the investors tracked by Insider Monkey, totaling close to $2.5 million in stock. Michael M. Rothenberg’s fund, Moab Capital Partners, also dumped its stock, about $1.8 million worth.

Let’s check out hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC). We will take a look at AveXis Inc (NASDAQ:AVXS), Trina Solar Limited (ADR) (NYSE:TSL), New Senior Investment Group Inc (NYSE:SNR), and Patrick Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:PATK). All of these stocks’ market caps are similar to MYCC’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $182 million. That figure was $103 million in MYCC’s case. AveXis Inc (NASDAQ:AVXS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand New Senior Investment Group Inc (NYSE:SNR) is the least popular one with only 17 bullish hedge fund positions. ClubCorp Holdings Inc (NYSE:MYCC) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. This is a slightly negative signal and we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard AVXS might be a better candidate to consider taking a long position in.

Disclosure: None