Farallon Capital Enters Elan, OfficeMax, Dell, Raises Clearwire Stake

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Farallon Capital Management’s latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that its portfolio was worth about $4.9 billion at the end of March. The firm bought 27 new stocks during the first quarter and increased its position in 11 other stocks. It sold completely out of 31 stocks and reduced its stake in 24 others.

Farallon Capital Management

As of the end of March, the firm’s top 10 holdings made up more than 45 percent of its portfolio’s value. Its top five holdings were reported to be Virgin Media Inc. (NASDAQ:VMED), Hudson Pacific Properties Inc (NYSE:HPP), American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and News Corp (NYSE:NWSA).

Farallon Capital’s Major New Stock Purchases

The fund’s new purchases during the first three months of the year included Virgin Media Inc. (NASDAQ:VMED), which leapt into its top five holdings list for the quarter. It also bought 2.5 million shares of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) as shareholders and founder Michael Dell battled over whether the struggling PC maker should go private or take a buyout deal from somewhere else, like activist investor Carl Icahn, who has made his second offer for it.

Other big purchases for the firm during the quarter include Elan Corporation, plc (NYSE:ELN), Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE:YUM), Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF) and OfficeMax Inc (NYSE:OMX).

Farallon Capital’s Major Position Increases

The firm’s most significant increase during the first quarter was Clearwire Corporation (NASDAQ:CLWR). It increased its stake in the mobile carrier by more than 450 percent as shareholders pondered the company’s future and whether it should accept buyout offers from Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S) or DISH Network Corp (NASDAQ:DISH) or look somewhere else.

Another major increase for Farallon during the first quarter was Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). It increased its stake in the search giant by 97 percent in that time frame.

The firm also increased its holdings in American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. (NYSE:FCX), as well as other companies.

Farallon Capital’s Major Reduced Positions

The fund reduced its stake in Life Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:LIFE), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), BP plc (NYSE:BP), Dollar General Corp. (NYSE:DG) and AbbVie Inc (NYSE:ABBV), the spinoff company of Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT).

Farallon Capital’s Major Stock Sell-Offs

The firm sold off more than 7.8 million shares of Nexen Inc. (NYSE:NXY) and 2.3 million shares of Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ:ORCL). Other major sell-offs were eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY), WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ:WBMD), Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO), United Technologies Corporation (NYSE:UTX), CVS Caremark Corporation (NYSE:CVS) and Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP).

Farallon Capital also sold all 12 million of its shares of Knight Capital Group (NITE) during the first quarter.

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