John H. Burbank, founder of Passport Capital, continues to have confidence in Cytec Industries Inc. (NYSE:CYT) by having over 10 percent of its portfolio in the specialty chemicals, while trimming its holdings in the oil and gas refining company Hollyfrontier Corp. (NYSE:HFC).
John Burbank shot into fame by being one of the prescient investors who profited from the collapse of the housing bubble.
In its first quarter 13F filing, Passport Capital revealed that it added 56 new stocks to its portfolio, bought more shares of 29 stocks, exited 70 stocks, while trimmed its holdings in 27 stocks.
The global investment firm’s top ten holdings constitute 42.78 percent of its overall portfolio. Passport Capital has a market value of $2.52 billion.
Passport Capital’s Major New Positions
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MHP) was the biggest addition to Passport Capital’s portfolio during the first quarter. Passport Capital purchased 1,353,321 shares in the book publishing company. According to the 13F filing, McGraw-Hill represents 2.79 percent of its long equity portfolio.
The next big addition was in Gardner Denver, Inc. (NYSE:GDI), with over 2.73 percent of Passport Capital’s investment held in the diversified machinery company. The investment firm purchased 918,862 shares in GDI.
It acquired a new position in the global Internet information provider Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) by holding over 2.08 percent of its portfolio through acquisition of 2,228,297 shares.
Passport Capital also showed confidence in the beverage company Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ADR) (NYSE: BUD) (EBR:ABI) and Internet information provider Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP) by holding over 1.91 percent of its portfolio in each of these two companies.
Passport Capital’s Top Positions
The specialty company Cytec Industries Inc. (NYSE:CYT) is a new addition to Passport Capital’s biggest holding as of March 31. The second largest holding was synthetics company Huntsman Corporation (NYSE:HUN) where the investment firm held 8,529,842 representing 6.28 percent of its overall portfolio.
Its third largest holding was in the medical instruments and supplies company Vivus, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS) where it held 9,554,858 shares constituting 4.17 percent of its portfolio.
Sold out positions
Passport Capital sold out its entire stake Hollyfrontier Corp. (NYSE:HFC) by selling its 1,181,000 shares in the company. At the beginning of the quarter, the investment firm held 2.12 percent of its portfolio in the oil and gas refining company. It also sold entire holdings in the Utilities SPDR (ETF) (NYSEARCA:XLU). It held 1.75 percent of its portfolio in XLU.
Another major position closed was in the catalog and mail order house company eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) where Passport Capital sold off its entire 815,000 shares that represented 1.6 percent of the company’s total portfolio at the beginning of the previous quarter.
