Several prominent hedge funds bought up millions of General Motors shares during the second quarter of this year.
Hedge fund managers are required to report the securities they owned at the end of every quarter in so-called 13-F filings. Though backward-looking, the filings often shed light on new investment trends and, in the case of investments in GM, possibly suggest increased confidence in the automaker’s future financial performance.
Hedge funds that bought notable amounts of GM stock during Q2 2015 include:
- Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn bought 7.9 million GM shares during the second quarter. The purchase brings the investment firm’s stake in GM to 14.6 million shares.
- Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors bought 1.8 million shares, raising its stake to 3.6 million shares.
- Soroban Capital is a new investor in GM, opening a new position by buying 3.5 million shares.
- David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management expanded its position additional 3.5 million shares, raising its stake to 18.8 million shares.
- Long-time GM investor Taconic Capital Advisors bought only a few more shares, pushing its stake in GM to 8.2 million shares.
These investments in one of America’s most iconic companies follow a contentious shareholder battle in the first half of the year during which a group of activist-investors were on the brink of starting a proxy fight for board seats in an effort to change the way in which the automaker rations profits with shareholders. GM ended up approving a plan to buy back $5 billion in stock while creating a capital allocation plan to establish more consistent profit sharing with shareholders, resulting in the activist shareholders backing down.
Appallosa’s Tepper was one of the activist investors pushing for the change. Meanwhile, Kyle Bass’ Hayman Capital — one of the dissident investors — kept its stake in the automaker unchanged.
General Motors is just now winding down procedures related to compensating vehicle owners and their families over faulty ignition switches in its vehicles; the faulty switches have been linked to over 100 deaths. The automaker did, however, report strong second-quarter earnings despite negative growth in the Chinese market. GM shares closed $31.70 on Tuesday, August 18th, down 10 percent for the year.
Comment
With new products like they have coming and the investment they have made into the R&D things should remain on a roll for the future. GM is one of the few companies really investing in the future well and this could really pay off.
Stock prices are low now and there is a lot of room for growth so I am not surprised at this. With continues earnings the stock should react favorably to this hence the hedge fund buyers.