Why You Should Pay Attention To Billionaire Rosenstein’s Mid-cap Stock Picks Like Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc (HOT)

Page 2 of 2

Starwood Hotels, founded in 1969, has been struggling with low margins for some time and its CEO Frits van Paasschen resigned earlier this year. Starwood did, however, report top line growth for the first five months of fiscal year 2015, being driven by the opening of new hotels in North America. Moreover, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc (NYSE:HOT) reported that is is aiming to open more hotels in North America and Europe during the remainder of the year and is also considering divesting some of its brands so as to focus more on its luxury brands like Sheraton.  Performance estimates are conservatively positive, awith EPS guidance of $2.99 for 2015 and $3.48 for 2016.

JANA Partners also initiated a small 150,000-share position in the Rhode Island-based retail bank Citizens Financial Group Inc (NYSE:CFG) during the first quarter, with the new position valued at $3.62 million. David Einhorn‘s Greenlight Capital had the largest position in the stock at the end of the first quarter out of the investors in our database. The long/short hedge fund boosted its stake by 25% during the quarter.

In March, Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (ADR) (NYSE:RBS) sold 135 million of its shares in Citizens Financial Group Inc (NYSE:CFG), dropping its stake to 40.8%. RBS is expected to divest its entire stake in Citizens Financial by the end of next year. Citizens Financial had a good quarter, beating EPS estimates by $0.05. Its revenue rose 1.5% and profits increased 26% during the quarter. Dozens of hedge funds and billionaires including Larry Robbins, Leon Cooperman and George Soros either initiated brand new positions or boosted their stakes in Citizens Financial during the first quarter, which had one of the largest boosts in fund ownership out of any stock during the first quarter. We will focus on this stock in detail in a future article.

Disclosure: None

Page 2 of 2