Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital is Bullish About $THOR

Eric Bannasch’s Cadian Capital boosted its stake in Thoratec Corporation (THOR) to 5.78% of the company.. They now hold 3.3M shares of the company. The stock currently trades at $33.63, and gained nearly 19% so far in 2011. Cadian already had nearly 5% of the company at the end of the first quarter. This means they purchased about a half a million shares at around $30. Just a month before the stock was trading above $35, so Eric Bannasch must have seen the recent decline in price as a buying opportunity. Outsiders who would have liked to imitate Cadian’s stock picks could have gotten the stock at $30.60 on June 23rd when the fund disclosed its transaction. That investment would have netted 10% already.

There are other hedge fund managers who’ve been bullish about Thoratec Corporation. Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital has the most shares of THOR among the more than 300 hedge funds we track. He increased his position in the company by 169% to nearly $139 M in the first quarter of this year. That gives Ainslie nearly 9.4% of THOR. Cadian Capital owns the second largest chunk of shares. John Burbank’s Passport Capital added THOR to his portfolio in the first quarter. He owns 2.1 M shares, or nearly 4% of the company. Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates increased his position in Q1 by 355%, giving him a total of about 3% of the company.

Eric Bannasch founded Cadian Capital in 2007 after working at Richard Perry’s Perry Capitalas a portfolio manager for the technology, media, and telecommunications fund. Cadian Capital also focuses on these sectors. Bannasch received his MBA from Stanford in 2003.

According to Yahoo Finance, THOR “develops, manufactures, and markets proprietary medical devices used for circulatory support. It operates in two divisions, Cardiovascular and International Technidyne Corporation (ITC). Cardiovascular division offers medical devices used for mechanical circulatory support (MCS). Its products include HeartMate II, HeartMate XVE, and the Paracorporeal Ventricular Assist Device. ITC division offers point-of-care diagnostic test systems that monitor blood coagulation, as well as monitor blood gas/electrolytes, oxygenation, and chemistry status.”