Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter

Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter

- By Graham Griffin

Seth Klarman (Trades, Portfolio), manager of The Baupost Group, has revealed his portfolio for the third quarter. The portfolio saw the addition of many new holdings, including Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:PSTH), Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ:AMAT), Healthpeak Properties Inc. (NYSE:PEAK) and Liberty SiriusXM Group (NASDAQ:LSXMA).


Klarman's Boston-based hedge fund searches for value opportunities through a wide array of options, including stocks, distressed debt, liquidations and foreign equities. Despite investing around the world in many different options, Klarman does not mind holding cash when opportunities are scarce. He adamantly warns people against investing without considering the risks incurred to generate returns.

Portfolio overview

At the end of the quarter, Klarman's portfolio contained 36 stocks, with 10 new holdings. Top holdings in the portfolio include eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), Liberty Global PLC (LBTYPK), Fox Corp. (NASDAQ:FOXA), Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT) and ViacomCBS Inc. (NASDAQ:VIAC).

Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter
Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter

By weight, the top three sectors represented are communication services (38.69%), technology (20.29%) and consumer cyclical (17.01%).

Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter
Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter

Pershing Square Tontine Holdings

During the third quarter, Klarman established a new stake in Pershing Square Tontine Holdings with the purchase of 17.50 million shares. The shares traded at an average price of $22.47 during the quarter. Overall, the purchase represented a 4.30% impact on the portfolio and GuruFocus estimates the total gain on the holding at 4.27%.

Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter
Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter

Pershing Square Tontine Holdings is a newly organized blank check company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital stock exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with a private company. Pershing Square Tontine Holdings' sponsor is 100% owned by the Pershing Square Capital Management funds.

Bill Ackman (Trades, Portfolio) is Pershing Square Tontine Holdings' chairman and CEO. He will work closely with the Pershing Square Capital Management investment team and the other employees to fulfill the company's corporate mission.

On Nov. 16, the stock was trading at $23.79 with a market cap of $4.76 billion.

Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter
Seth Klarman's Top 5 Buys of the Third Quarter

The company has not yet selected any specific business combination target, but it intends to pursue merger opportunities with private, large capitalization, high-quality growth companies. They will seek targets in four principal market segments: high-quality initial public offering candidates, mature unicorns, private equity portfolio companies and family-owned companies.