Top Small-Cap Plays of Jason Karp Include Post Holdings Inc (POST), Green Plains Inc (GPRE)

A new pick by Tourbillon Capital during the first quarter was in Post Holdings Inc (NYSE:POST), in which Karp now owns a stake of 1.93 million shares with a value of $90.17 million. Missouri-based Post Holdings, founded in 1895, joins Karp’s large collection of consumer goods stocks, and the company has returned 4.30% year-to-date, though it has struggled over the past three months. The recent downturn is due to the presence of possible bird flu contamination in up to 35% of Post Holdings’ egg supply.  Thanks to this, shares have dropped considerably since it topped out at $51.80 on May 11. While the company can’t yet assess the financial harm the bird flu has had on it, we do know that Michael Foods, Post Holdings’ egg producer, accounted for 28% of Post Holdings’ revenue during the January to September, 2014 period. Other hedge funds that hold stakes in Post Holdings are Bridger Management, with a stake of 1.15 million shares valued at $53.89 million and William Duhamel‘s Route One Investment Company, which has exposure of 13.02% to the stock in its public equity portfolio through a position of 2.43 million shares.

Tourbillon also increased its stake in Nebraska-based ethanol producer Green Plains Inc (NASDAQ:GPRE) by 86% to 2.32 million shares valued at $66.23 million. Green Plains has performed the best of Karp’s small-cap stocks in this article in 2015, achieving a return of 25.42% year-to-date. Green Plains has enjoyed those returns despite the company’s earnings for the first quarter amounting to a loss of $0.09 per share, well below analysts’ expectations of an $0.11 profit. The losses Green Plains Inc (NASDAQ:GPRE) incurred during the first quarter were partly due to depreciation in gas and ethanol prices however, which have since recovered. Analysts’ estimates for the second quarter are very positive, estimating earnings per share to increase to $0.40. Citadel Investment Group and D E Shaw also increased their stakes in Green Plains by 47% and 21%, lifting their stakes to 2.11 million shares and 1.55 million shares respectively.

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