Healthequity Inc (HQY), Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY), Shire Plc (ADR) (SHP) Among Top Picks of Award Winning Napier Park Global Capital

Shire PLC (ADR) (NASDAQ:SHP) and Healthequity Inc (NASDAQ:HQY) are Napier’s new top picks, as the fund significantly increased its exposure to both stocks during the third quarter of last year. Healthequity Inc (NASDAQ:HQY), which conducted the IPO during the third quarter, was a new position in Napier’s 13F, as the investor went bullish after the offering grabbing more than 4 million shares over the following two months, which represent 7.3% of Healthequity’s common stock. The investor’s holding, valued at $73.8 million as of September 30, represented 25% of their entire equity portfolio. The stock of the company has increased 16% since then. Other shareholders of Healthequity Inc (NASDAQ:HQY) include Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group, and Seymour Sy Kaufman and Michael Stark’s Crosslink Capital.

In the case of Shire PLC, the Irish biopharmaceutical company which was amid takeover rumors six months ago, Napier increased their position in the company over 400%, from 10,200 shares, to 52,087 shares as of September 30. This was one of the hedge plays by Napier mentioned above. The expected takeover of Shire by AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV) eventually fell through on concerns that new government tax rules would make the deal much less profitable for the latter, and Shire PLC (ADR)(NASDAQ:SHPG)’s  stock plunged on October 14 as a result, which according to O’Brien was “one of our (Napier’s) biggest buying days” .

Other top shareholders of Shire PLC (ADR)(NASDAQ:SHPG) as of September 30 included John Paulson’s Paulson and Co., who increased their position in the stock 169% to over 9 million shares and took a hard hit when the merger fell through, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, and Alec Litowitz and Ross Laser’s Magnetar Capital.

Previous top picks Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (USA) (NYSE:LGF), and Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) both fell out of the top 3, though Napier increased their position slightly in Lions Gate, adding just over 20,000 shares in the movie production company best known for producing the Hunger Games films. That signalled a large shift for Napier, which had sold off 65% of their Lions Gate portfolio in the second quarter. Meanwhile, Napier sold off 40% of their Micron portfolio during the third quarter, which proved wise, as like Shire, Micron took a big hit in the middle of October, shedding over 20% of its value within the span of a week.

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