Greenlight Capital's 13F filing reveals big bets on a few stocks including Brighthouse Financial Inc (Nasdaq: BHF), AerCap Holdings N.V. (NYSE: AER), and ENSCO PLC (NYSE: ESV).
Greenlight Capital's Largest Holdings
On February 14th, David Einhorn's firm Greenlight Capital filed its quarterly Form 13F regulatory filing. I reviewed the filing to gain a glimpse into the firm's large portfolio.
Greenlight Capital's stock portfolio totals $5.5 billion according to the latest filing. The list value of stock holdings is down -6.1% when compared to the last quarter. As a benchmark, the S&P 500 was up 6.1% over the same period.
Quarter-over-Quarter Turnover (QoQ Turnover) measures the level of trading activity in a portfolio. Greenlight Capital's QoQ Turnover for the latest quarter was 51.7%, so the firm appears to trade a significant percent of its portfolio each quarter.
The Ideas section of finbox.io tracks top investors and trending investment themes. You can get the latest data on the holdings discussed below at the Greenlight Capital page. The following table summarizes the firm's largest holdings reported in the last filing:
| Ticker | Name | Holding ($mil) | % Of Portfolio |
|---|---|---|---|
| GM | GENERAL MTRS CO | $1,060.1 | 19.3% |
| BHF | BRIGHTHOUSE FINL INC | $645.0 | 11.7% |
| AER | AERCAP HOLDINGS NV | $513.9 | 9.3% |
| MYL | MYLAN N V | $430.8 | 7.8% |
| AAPL | APPLE INC | $371.1 | 6.7% |
| VOYA | VOYA FINL INC | $282.1 | 5.1% |
| GRBK | GREEN BRICK PARTNERS INC | $272.5 | 5.0% |
The seven positions above represent 65.0% of the fund's total portfolio.
Greenlight Capital's 6 Largest Purchases
I also used finbox.io to find Greenlight Capital's largest buys last quarter. Here's the list of the biggest stock purchases determined by comparing the last two filings:
| Ticker | Name | Purchased ($mil) | % Of Portfolio |
|---|---|---|---|
| BHF | BRIGHTHOUSE FINL INC | $645.0 | 11.7% |
| AER | AERCAP HOLDINGS NV | $507.8 | 9.3% |
| ESV | ENSCO PLC | $503.5 | 1.0% |
| CNX | CNX RESOURCES CORPORATION | $260.5 | 4.7% |
| CEIX | CONSOL ENERGY INC NEW | $87.9 | 1.6% |
| CCR | CONSOL COAL RES LP | $85.9 | 1.6% |
The largest stock purchase for the quarter was Brighthouse Financial Inc (Nasdaq: BHF) and was also a new position. Greenlight Capital purchased a new $645.0 million position and the stock now represents 11.7% of the firm's portfolio. Brighthouse Financial provides life insurance and annuity solutions and spun-off from MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) in August of last year.
The next largest stock purchase was Aercap Holdings N.V. (NYSE: AER). The investment manager increased its position in the company by $507.8 million with the stock now representing 9.3% of the firm's portfolio.
Most can agree that with thousands of stocks traded on U.S. exchanges, doing thorough research on each one is nearly impossible for smaller investors. Leveraging the resources of the largest hedge funds on Wall Street can be a powerful way to narrow down the list. Investors may want to take a closer look at the nams above.
David Einhorn, The Poker Player
Einhorn is the son of an investment banker and a brother who similarly manages an investment fund today. Einhorn turned $500,000 given to him by his family in the 1990s into Greenlight Capital, which today boasts approximately $7 billion in AUM. The long/short equity fund has been hard to beat, generating returns of 19.5% for the first 17 years through 2013.
However, that performance record was interrupted in 2015 when Greenlight Capital suffered double-digit declines. Then last year, it was reported that investors pulled $400 million from the hedge fund amid a misplaced bet on Tesla.
Having achieved the status of “youngest billionaire” to grace the Forbes 400 list when he was 43 years old and worth $1.2 billion, Einhorn is known for ruffling the feathers of executives at major corporations. The Ira W. Sohn Investment Research Conference is where he made two of his most famous calls to a crowd that was hanging on his every word. He criticized Allied Capital, which led to him being the target of an investigation, and years later Lehman Brothers. Both of which made him unpopular in corporate America but whose fates played out as he had predicted.
You can learn more about Einhorn and his famous Allied Capital call in his book entitled Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, a Long Short.
Perhaps Einhorn’s success in the stock market is rivaled only by his performance at the poker table, having placed in the World Series of Poker tournaments. He’s also a charitable person, having donated his winnings to charity.
Author: Andy Pai
Expertise: financial modeling, mergers & acquisitions
Andy is also a founder at finbox.io, where he's focused on building tools that make it faster and easier for investors to do investment research. Andy's background is in investment banking where he led the analysis on over 50 board advisory engagements involving mergers and acquisitions, fairness opinions and solvency opinions. Some of his board advisory highlights:
- Sears Holdings Corp.'s $620 mm spin-off via rights offering of Sears Outlet, Hometown Stores and Sears Hardware Stores.
- Cerberus Capital Management's $3.3 bn acquisition of SUPERVALU Inc.'s New Albertsons, Inc. assets.
Andy can be reached at [email protected].
As of this writing, I did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities and this is not a buy or sell recommendation on any security mentioned.
