Five Notable Moves by Billionaire George Soros’ Fund

The latest 13F filing by the family office of billionaire George Soros, Soros Fund Management, is actually a proof that the maverick investor always puts his money where his mouth his. Earlier this year, Mr. Soros  had stated that China is on the verge of a credit crisis similar to the one that U.S. experienced in the period between 2007-2008 , and as a consequence of that soon U.S. stocks would start falling and gold will start moving higher. According to Soros Fund Management ‘s latest filing, it reduced the size of its US equity portfolio to $4.53 billion from nearly $6.05 billion. Moreover, several of the new stakes initiated by the family office during the first quarter, including its top stock holding, were in stocks of gold mining companies. The filing also revealed that during the first quarter the equity portfolio of the family office saw a quarterly turnover of 117.26% and its top 10 equity holdings at the end of the quarter accounted for 43.29% of the value of its equity portfolio. Since Soros Fund Management reshuffled its portfolio in a major way during the first period, in this post, we will focus on the top five moves made by the fund during that period.

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Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc (NASDAQ:GLPI)

– Shares Owned by Soros Fund Management (as of March 31): 1.81 million

– Value of Holding (as of March 31): $55.84 million

Let’s begin with Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc (NASDAQ:GLPI), a stock in which Soros Fund Management increased its stake by 30% during the first quarter. Shares of the Pennsylvania-based real estate investment trust (REIT) have been on fire since March and even the mixed quarterly numbers the company reported in April hasn’t been able to cool them off as they currently trade up nearly 18% year-to-date. In spite of such a large move that the stock has seen in the past three months, it still sports a lucrative annual dividend yield of 6.84% currently. For its fiscal 2016 first quarter, the REIT managed to beat analysts’ EPS estimate by $0.03 by declaring EPS of $0.70, however, the revenue of $148.8 million it declared missed the projection slightly by $0.27 million. Robert Hockett‘s Covalent Capital Partners made exactly the opposite move that Soros Fund Management made during the first quarter and reduced its stake in Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc (NASDAQ:GLPI) by 30% during the first quarter to 764,743 shares.