Phil Hempleman’s Ardsley Partners’ Returns, AUM and Holdings

First, let’s breeze through some of the Ardsley Partners’ new positions at the end of Q3. The fund initiated a fresh stake in Magnolia Oil & Gas Corp (NYSE:MGY), an oil and gas exploration and production company, buying 975,000 of its shares worth $14.62 million. By occupying 1.97% of the fund’s portfolio, it’s one of the top 20 largest positions held by the fund as of September 30th. The fund also walked into a new position in one of the largest homebuilders in North America, Skyline Champion Corp (NYSE:SKY), acquiring 200,000 shares of the company valued at $5.71 million. According to our latest research, the hedge fund interest in this stock is skyrocketing.

Some of the other big positions Ardsley Partners held during the third quarter were in Sunopta Inc (NASDAQ:STKL), a Canada-headquartered, multi-national food and mineral company, and Sunrun Inc. (NASDAQ:RUN), a California-based provider of residential solar electricity. When it comes to Sunopta Inc. (NASDAQ:STKL) the third largest fund’s holding, the fund increased its stake in the company by 49% percent to 4,414,229 shares valued $32.44 million. When it comes to Sunrun Inc. (NASDAQ:RUN), although the fund decided to raise its stake in the company by only 5% to 2,020,000 shares worth $25.12 million. Nevertheless, it’s still among top ten largest Ardsley Partners’ holdings occupying 3.38% of its portfolio.

It seems that the fund is quite optimistic when it comes to Amyris Inc. (NASDAQ:AMRS) since it boosted its stake in the company by an astonishing 1780%. The fund purchased 2,349,867 shares of a renewable products company, worth $18.65 million. In addition, it’s the company in which the fund increased its stake the most during the third quarter. On the contrary,  the fund is starting to turn its back to 8X8 Inc (NYSE:EGHT), a provider of cloud communications and customer engagement solutions, at least according to its latest 13F filing with the SEC. The fund decreased its stake in the company by 94% to 15,000 shares valued at $319 000.

In the meantime it appears that Ardsley Partners is losing interest in some of its other holdings. For instance, some of the biggest positions the fund decided to completely sell during the third quarter were in Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:AIMT) whose 7,500 shares the fund previously held and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ:BBBY), to whose 10,000 shares the fund said goodbye to.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.