Third Point Capital Q4 2012 Letter

Daniel Loeb and his Third Point Capital are out with their Q4 2012 letter. Daniel was recently named to the Forbes billionaires list along with David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital (personally I was surprised that Bill Ackman of Pershing Square wasn't on the list). But I digress, in the letter he is rather constrained. Talking about how their increased their gross exposure in Q1 but firmly believes that developed western economies are just kicking the can down the road for something much worse later. For the year they were berak even but year to date they are up 4.9% (its worth mentioning that since inception in 1996 they have annualized 17.5%). He goes on to discuss his position in Unicredit, Skyworks Solutions (which they exited in March as it reached their price target), EksportFinans, Abercrombie & Fitch, Volkswagen, Ally Financial, and Yahoo!. I enjoyed the letter and it was one of the more detailed position reviews than we have gotten in the past.

Enjoy.
Third Point Capital - 2012.03.13

Paulson & Co Presentation on Hartford Financial

Paulson & Co submitted as part of a 13/D filing with the SEC a presentation that they delivered to Hartford Financial Group (NYSE: HIG). Paulson & Co has an 8.5% stake in HIG. In the presentation they state, a spinoff of P&C would unlock significant value and the combined value would be approximately $31, a 62% increase from its current price. After his activism on their last call I wouldn't be surprised if Paulson & Co gets even more aggressive. Interesting to watch to say the least.

Enjoy.
Paulson-Hartford-Presentation

Bill Ackman on CNBC

Bill Ackman of Pershing Square was on CNBC today discussing his portfolio and his views on the market. Basically he thinks the market could surprise to the upside. He thinks real estate represents a good opportunity - particularly single family homes. He is trying to play this with his position in Fortune Brand Homes (NASDAQ: FBHS) - for a presentation on this please click here.

He then spoke about why he sold Lowes (NYSE: LOW) - for a presentation on why he liked it click here here. Basicalyl he needed cash to build his Canadian Pacific - for that presentation please see here.

Enjoy.

Graham and Doddsville Winter 2012

Columbia Business School's Applied Value Investing Program is out with their latest edition of the Graham and Doddsville newsletter. In this issue they interview Sam Zell, William von Mueffling, Michael Karsch, and William Strong. Plus there are some student stock pitches on BJ's Restaurants (BJRI), Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI), Hewlett Packard (HQP), and Hankook Tire (000240 KS).

I particularly liked the interview with Michael Karsch and William Strong as those are two people that I really respect but haven't gotten a lot of "face time" with.

Enjoy.
Graham and Doddsville Winter 2012

T2 Partners February 2012 Letter

Below is T2 Partners February 2010 letter. For the month of February T2 Partners was down 0.9% vs. a gain of 4.3% for the S&P 500. For the year they are up 11.5% versus 9.01% for the S&P 500.

The letter is fairly brief and is mostly a re-hash of his prior comments on Berkshire's annual letter. Enjoy.

Tilson Feb Letter

John Burbank of Passport Capital on Bloomberg

John Burbank of Passport capital was recently on Bloomberg. In the interview he talks about how is going long the Saudi Arabian market as a way to both play emerging markets as well as the strenght of oil. The overall interview was pretty interesting. Enjoy:

Paulson & Co Year End Letter

Below please find Paulson & Co's year end letter to investors. It is a beast at 102 pages. They probably went with lenght in order to describe why their performance was so sub-par. In 2011 the merger fund was down 10%, gold fund was down 10.5%, credit opportunities was down 18%, recovery was down 18%, advantage fund (the main one) was down 36%, and the advantage plus fund was down 52%.

In the letter they go through their current positioning and their view on the world. They spend some time discussing how various assets performed post Lehman and compared it to the current situation in Greece. They then walk through some current positions. They are fairly bullish on AMC (believe it could be taken out), Ralcorp, Delphi, Caesers, Supermedia, etc. He also talks a bit about some OTM hedges he bought to guard agaisnt inflation that would return many-many multiples if inflation were to run up. My favorite of the detailed discussions on the portfolio was on Hartford where he thinks its worth $32 versus a current price of $20.79. This is especially interesting since on their last quarter call he chastised management for their lack of value creation. Definetely one worth watching.

Enjoy.
Paulson 2011 Year-End Firm Report