Priceline Group Inc (PCLN), Kate Spade & Co (KATE), TriNet Group Inc (TNET) Among Billionaire Chase Coleman’s New Picks

Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management LLC recently submitted its 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the reporting period of March 31. According to the filing, the investment firm has a public equity portfolio valued at $9.12 billion, while the firm’s Tiger Global hedge fund has approximately $6 billion in assets under management as of the beginning of 2015. Tiger Global Management was founded by Coleman and is an employee owned investment firm that employs both short and long-term strategies in making its investments, while investing in both established companies and unheralded ones. Tiger Global Management invests in diversified markets, including real estate, technology, energy, telecommunications, and more. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the firm’s top new stock picks, which include Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN), Kate Spade & Co (NYSE:KATE), and TriNet Group Inc (NYSE:TNET).

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Most investors can’t outperform the stock market by individually picking stocks because stock returns aren’t evenly distributed. A randomly picked stock has only a 35% to 45% chance (depending on the investment horizon) to outperform the market. There are a few exceptions, one of which is when it comes to purchases made by corporate insiders. Academic research has shown that certain insider purchases historically outperformed the market by an average of seven percentage points per year. This effect is more pronounced in small-cap stocks. Another exception is the small-cap stock picks of hedge funds. Our research has shown that the 15 most popular small-cap stocks among hedge funds outperformed the market by nearly a percentage point per month between 1999 and 2012. We have been forward testing the performance of these stock picks since the end of August 2012 and they have returned more than 144% over the ensuing 32 months, outperforming the S&P 500 Index by nearly 85 percentage points (read the details here). The trick is focusing only on the best small-cap stock picks of funds, not their large-cap stock picks which are extensively covered by analysts and followed by almost everybody.

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Tiger Global Management held a total of 414,817 shares of Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) valued at $482.91 million as of the reporting period and stands as the firm’s top newly-initiated position during the first quarter. The online travel services company released its first quarter results on May 7, posting $8.12 in adjusted earnings per share, beating analysts’ consensus estimate of $7.72. The company’s revenue for the period was $1.84 billion. Travel bookings increased by 12%, which was above the company’s guidance of 2-9%. Besides the number of bookings, the value of the bookings also shot up by 12 percentage points. The company announced yesterday that it’s investing an additional $250 million in China’s leading online travel company, Ctrip.com International, Ltd. (ADR) (NASDAQ:CTRP). The investment will likely give Priceline Group Inc (NASDAQ:PCLN) a total ownership of 15% of Ctrip’s outstanding shares. Priceline Group Inc had a total of 11 billionaires from our database invested in it as of March 31, with the total value of their holding amounting to $3.80 billion. That was a great increase from the previous reporting period when there were only six billionaires holding $2.70 billion of the company’s stock. Among the current billionaires invested in the stock are Lee Ainslie of Maverick Capital and David Tepper of Appaloosa Management.

Tiger Global Management opened a new position in Kate Spade & Co (NYSE:KATE) during the first quarter consisting of 3.58 million shares valued at $119.41 million. The company also released its first quarter results on May 7, posting $0.03 in earnings per share, beating analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.02. The company’s revenue also beat estimates with close to $10 million. Kate Spade & Co (NYSE:KATE) is expected to perform better for the rest of the year, with analysts predicting earnings per share of $0.54 for fiscal year 2015. Several analysts have recently issued comments on the stock, with BBVA and BB&T giving the stock a “Buy” rating and price target of $35.00 while analysts at Oppenheimer gave the stock a “Market Outperform” rating, noting it was a valuation call. The consensus target price on the stock by seventeen analysts is $36.63, showing strong upside of nearly 50%, with 14 of the analysts giving the stock a “Buy” rating. There were a total of five billionaires invested in the stock as of March 31, with a total value of $336.39 million. Among them are John Griffin of Blue Ridge Capital and Julian Robertson of Tiger Management.

The last stock we’ll look at in this article is TriNet Group Inc (NYSE:TNET), in which Tiger Global Management opened a new position of 2.32 million shares valued at $81.68 million. The human resources company reported $0.35 in earnings per share for the first quarter, which was slightly above consensus estimates of $0.33. More impressively, TriNet Group Inc (NYSE:TNET) posted total revenue for the first quarter was $625.60 million, which demolished the consensus estimate of $145.60 million. That revenue was also 22.9% higher than what the company registered last-over-year. Hound Partners, led by Jonathan Auerbach also opened a large new position in Trinet during the first quarter.

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