The best performing stocks in JANA’s 13F portfolio was Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX) and Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SLXP) which agreed to be acquired by Valeant last month. Salix returned 37% and Valeant delivered a 38% gain for investors during the first two months of the year. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International was the third most popular healthcare stock among hedge funds (see the list here). JANAs biggest position, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (NASDAQ:WBA), also contributed to large gains for JANA. Walgreens Boots Alliance, which is also one of the ten most popular healthcare stocks, returned 9.5% during the first two months of 2015. Here are the returns of each stock that is in JANA’s 13F portfolio at the end of December:
| Company | Ticker | Return |
|---|---|---|
| Walgreens Boots Alliance | WBA | 9.5% |
| Valeant Pharmaceuticals | VRX | 38.0% |
| Hertz Global Holdings | HTZ | -7.5% |
| PetSmart | PETM | 2.0% |
| eBay Inc. | EBAY | 3.2% |
| Ashland Inc. | ASH | 6.9% |
| Aercap Holdings N.V. | AER | 14.6% |
| Actavis | ACT | 13.2% |
| HD Supply Holdings Inc. | HDS | 0.1% |
| Charter Communications Inc. | CHTR | 8.4% |
| Rackspace Hosting Inc | RAX | 6.1% |
| American International Group Inc. | AIG | -1.2% |
| NCR Corporation | NCR | 0.9% |
| Liberty Interactive Corporation | QVCA | 0.4% |
| SuperValu Inc. | SVU | 1.9% |
| SolarCity Corporation | SCTY | -4.0% |
| Computer Sciences Corporation | CSC | 12.5% |
| Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd. | SLXP | 36.8% |
| Golar LNG Limited | GLNG | -14.9% |
| Kinder Morgan Inc. | KMI | -2.0% |
| iRobot Corporation | IRBT | -5.4% |
| Energy Transfer Equity L.P. | ETE | 12.2% |
| Applied Materials Inc. | AMAT | 0.9% |
A large number of these stocks are targeted by activist investors (either JANA or other activists). JANA sits on the board of Walgreens Boots Alliance. Activist Jeff Ubben‘s ValueAct has been engaged with Valeant Pharmaceuticals International for a very long time. Carl Icahn won three board seats at Hertz Global Holdings (NYSE:HTZ) last September. After that, JANA boosted its stake in Hertz Global Holdings and filed a 13D. PetSmart, Inc. (NASDAQ:PETM), Ashland Inc (NYSE:ASH), and Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE:CSC) are other stocks that have been targeted by JANA through activist campaigns. Carl Icahn has been targeting eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) for a while now. Billionaire Dan Loeb also boosted his stake in eBay Inc. to over $560 million by the end of 2014. We like eBay Inc. as a potentially profitable spinoff play as well. NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR), Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE:RAX), and AerCap Holdings N.V. (NYSE:AER) are stocks targeted by other activists. Activist investors usually allocate some portion of their portfolios to stocks that are targeted by other activists. We believe investors would benefit more by imitating activists themselves rather than paying someone else to do the same.
Disclosure: None
