According to a 13G filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Larry Robbins’ Glenview Capital revealed its ownership of 8.08 million shares of VCA Inc. (NASDAQ:WOOF), representing 9.83% of the outstanding stock. To be more detailed, Glenview Capital reported selling 4.72 million shares of VCA on August 3. Moreover, 4.7 million of the aforementioned sell-off were sold at $56.33 each, while the remaining shares were sold at $61.61 a share.
Glenview Capital Management is New York-based hedge fund established by Larry Robbins in 2001. The firm primarily makes concentrated bets on large-cap companies, but is not eschewing from investing in bonds as well. Generally, the hedge fund looks for companies with good businesses, low valuations, and excess capital that can succeed irrespective of the economic environment they are operating in. Glenview Capital Management oversees a semi-diversified portfolio with a net equity exposure in the range of 40-60%, which makes the fund’s portfolio hedged to some extent. The investment firm takes on a deep fundamental approach to investing, which has proven to be quite successful through the course of the fund’s existence. Glenview Capital returned a cumulative return of 260% over the ten-year period since its inception in 2001, which yields an annualized return of 14.2%. According to its most recent 13F filing, Glenview Capital manages a public equity portfolio with a market value of $21.90 billion.
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We pay attention to hedge funds’ moves because our research has shown that hedge funds are extremely talented at picking stocks on the long side of their portfolios. It is true that hedge fund investors have been underperforming the market in recent years. However, this was mainly because hedge funds’ short stock picks lost a ton of money during the bull market that started in March 2009. Hedge fund investors also paid an arm and a leg for the services that they received. We have been tracking the performance of hedge funds’ 15 most popular stock picks in real time since the end of August 2012. These stocks have returned 123% since then and outperformed the S&P 500 Index by around 66 percentage points (see more details here). That’s why we believe it is important to pay attention to hedge fund sentiment; we also don’t like paying huge fees.
VCA Inc. (NASDAQ:WOOF) is a leading provider of pet healthcare services in the United States and Canada. The company owns and operates the largest networks of freestanding veterinary hospitals and veterinary-exclusive clinical laboratories in the United States. Moreover, VCA is the largest provider of online communication, professional education and marketing solutions to the veterinary community. Let’s not forget to mention that the company also supplies diagnostic imaging equipment to the veterinary industry. The shares of the provider of pet healthcare services have grown by 19% since the beginning of the year and reached an all-time high of over $62 a few days ago.