M8 BARRON’S March 16, 2020
INSIDE SCOOP
CEO Richard
Adkerson bought
$2.5 million of
Freeport-
McMoRan shares
as they slumped.
conversion of pre-IPO convertible
preferred securities immediately
after the close of the IPO on March
- OrbiMed currently holds 13.5%
of Passage Bio’s tradable stock.
Increases in
Holdings
LKQ(LKQ)
ValueAct Capitaldisclosed on
March 9 an increased position of
21,547,746 shares of the automotive-
parts distributor. ValueAct bought a
total of 5,015,028 shares during the
span of Jan. 27 to March 9 at prices
from $26.13 to $33.07 each, and now
owns 7% of the outstanding stock.
LKQ will be slightly slimmer soon;
it agreed in January to sell two
Czech wholesale automotive-parts
distributors to Swiss Automotive
Group AG. Terms of the transac-
tion were not disclosed.
Decreases in
Holdings
PDL BioPharma(PDLI)
Engine Capitalreduced its inter-
est in the biopharmaceutical and
health-care-investment firm to
4,519,994 shares. In order to rebal-
ance its portfolio “in light of recent
market volatility and the apprecia-
tion in [PDL’s] stock price,” En-
gine Capital sold 1,705,849 shares
from Feb. 28 to March 9 at per
share prices of $3.35 and $3.54.
Engine Capital now holds a 4%
stake in PDL BioPharma’s com-
mon stock.
Quantum(QMCO)
VIEX Capital Advisorsrevealed
on March 11 that it sold 1,242,232
shares of the digital-content-
platform provider. Those sales were
transacted from Feb. 3 to March 11
at prices ranging from $3.40 to
$6.73 apiece, and give VIEX a 4.7%
interest in Quantum, equal to
1,890,594 shares. That stake
excludes shares owned by VIEX
Capital founder and partner Eric
Singer, who at one time held a seat
on Quantum’s board.
Activist Holdings
Synalloy(SYNL)
Privet Funddisclosed on March 5
a position in the specialty-chemicals
and metal manufacturer of
1,535,507 shares, or 17% of the out-
standing stock. That amount in-
cludes 314,058 shares purchased at
$12.32 to $13.70 each from March 3
through March 5. On March 3,
Privet entered into a agreement
withUPGto form a group “for the
purpose of engaging in discussions
with [Synalloy] and enhancing
value for stockholders.” UPG owns
723,401 shares of Synalloy, and,
combined with Privet’s stake, the two
investors own 25% of the tradable
stock.
Original Filings
Passage Bio(PASG)
OrbiMed Advisorsreported an
initial stake in the central-nervous-
system-focused biopharmaceutical of
5,947,323 shares. That amount in-
cludes 700,000 shares purchased
through Passage Bio’s initial public
offering on Feb. 28 at an offering
price of $18 each. The other 5,247,323
shares resulted from the automatic
These disclosures are
from 13Ds filed with
the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
13Ds are filed within
10 days of an entity’s
attaining more than
5% in any class of a
company’s securities.
Subsequent changes
in holdings or inten-
tions must be re-
ported in amended
filings. This material is
from March 5 through
March 11, 2020.
Source:Insider-
Score.comPOWER PLAY
W
ith markets in chaos,
hedge funds are having
their show-me moment—
and some are passing with
flying colors.
The post-financial-crisis world
hasn’t been kind to hedge funds.
The industry’s performance lagged
behind the S&P 500 index, causing
critics to question its relevance,
Now, with a bear market taking
hold, the spotlight is on fund man-
agers to show that they can provide
the downside protection they’ve
promised.
So far, some of them have. Bill
Ackman’s Pershing Square was up
nearly 3% this year through March
9, thanks to well-timed hedges. The
fund declined to offer details of its
hedging strategy, and its perfor-
mance during this past week’s selloff
is unknown. The average hedge
fund was down 1.7% in February,
easily beating the S&P 500’s 8.2%
drop. Equity hedge funds fared
comparatively better than the
market, falling 2.8% last month.
Some 40% of funds delivered
gains last month, and HFR’s Ken-
neth J. Heinz thinks those that deliv-
ered inversely correlated returns in
February will keep it up through the
middle of the year.
But the fund industry has also
had misfires. H2O Asset Manage-
ment warned of “surprisingly large”
losses this week due to ill-timed bets
that U.S. Treasuries would lose
value while Italian sovereign bonds
gained. The opposite has happened.
H2O declined to comment.
But for many, the credo remains
the same. As one manager of a
multibillion-dollar fund told us:
“There are times to make money
and times not to lose money.”
We don’t need to tell you which
time it is now.B
TopFreeport-McMoRan
ExecsBoughtStock
C
opper-mining giantFree-
port-McMoRanhas seen
its shares tumble in 2020,
but Chief Executive Officer
Richard Adkerson and
Chief Financial Officer
Kathleen Quirk have re-
cently made large stock purchases.
Freeport-McMoRan stock (ticker:
FCX) has lost two-fifths of its value
this year. The company has been hav-
ing challenges with an Indonesian
mine, and with continuing trade ten-
sions between the U.S. and China.
These were issues before the coronavi-
rus outbreak became a major global
worry.
Adkerson paid $2.5 million on
March 5 for 250,000 Freeport-McMo-
Ran shares, an average per-share
price of $10.02. He now owns 2.7 mil-
lion shares in a personal account, and
an additional 813,000 shares through
a trust and a retirement account, ac-
cording to a form he filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
He last bought stock in June, at
nearly the same per-share price. Adk-
erson paid $1.74 million on June 6 for
172,000 Freeport-McMoRan shares,
an average price of $10.14 each.
Quirk paid $852,600, also on
March 5, for 85,000 Freeport-McMo-
Ran shares, an average per-share
price of $10.03. She now owns 1.1 mil-
lion shares in a personal account.
Freeport-McMoRan, which also
mines gold and molybdenum, didn’t
respond to a request to make Adker-
son and Quirk available for comment.
Adkerson told The Wall Street
Journal in January that he wasn’t in-
terested in a combination with Barrick
Gold, after the CEO of that gold miner
had made overtures to do so.B
By ED LIN
Showtime
ForHedge
Funds
By Carleton English