Hedge Funds Love Alibaba, Dump Herbalife Shares

It wasn't only Jack Ma who became struck more gold from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's BABA IPO. The biggest hedge funds on the Street also made a killing from Alibaba’s listing. As the season of filing 13Fs with the SEC for third quarter came to an end, it gave a clear picture of who on the Street got the biggest share of Alibaba’s pie.

Kayla Tausche from CNBC recently reported on the top hedge funds that held Alibaba's shares during the end of third quarter.

"Third Point's Dan Loeb, Appaloosa's David Tepper, and Omega's Leon Cooperman requested personal meetings with Alibaba executives in September. It wasn't just showmanship hedge funds overwhelmingly taking stakes and in some cases very large stakes in Alibaba, ahead of what became the largest IPO ever," Tausche said.

Related Link: Why Herbalife Stock Is Collapsing In 5 Charts

According to the figures reported by Tausche, Dan Loeb's Third point held the largest stake in Alibaba among hedge funds with 7.2 million shares. Next in the list were George Soros’ Soros Fund Management and David Shaw’s firm D.E. Shaw, which held more than four million shares each. John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. held 1.9 million shares and Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management held 1.5 million shares.

Other hedge funds with substantial stake in Alibaba included David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management, which held 725,000 shares. Tausche highlighted that family offices of Steven Cohen and Stanley Druckenmiller also held stakes in Alibaba.

Herbalife Getting Dumped

Herbalife Ltd. HLF shares are continuing their unprecedented fall since the start of the year as the company tries to get its act together. At time of writing, shares of Herbalife were down more than 50 percent for the year and more than 15 percent since last month. While some hedge funders are dumping the stock in anticipation of more losses, others continue to bet on a turnaround.

"Herbalife shares tumbling in the third quarter after the company again missing estimates that led George Soros to cut his stake in the company by 60 percent. Supporters of Herbalife like Carl Icahn and Richard Perry are hanging on however," Tausche added.