Seth Klarman's Baupost Group Is Bullish On Energy & Communications

Seth Klarman’s Baupost Group is one the largest hedge funds in the world. Its equity portfolio, now worth roughly $6 billion, comprises only 32 stocks, and is mostly allocated to energy (40 percent), information technology (31 percent) and healthcare (22 percent) stocks.

Over the second quarter of the year, Klarman started 4 new equity positions, increased his exposure to another 10, and trimmed it in 6 of them.

Same as in the first quarter, the fund placed its largest bet on Cheniere Energy, Inc. LNG. After an 11 percent increase in its wage, the firm disclosed ownership of 15,365,230 shares, worth more than $1 billion, which account for almost 6.5 percent of the total shares outstanding.

Only two institutional investors hold larger stakes in Cheniere: the Vanguard Group, which owns 15,551,615 shares, and Carl Icahn, who recently declared holding an activist stake comprising 19,353,530 shares of the company.

Second in line, also same as in the first quarter, is ViaSat, Inc. VSAT, a relatively small-cap company of which the fund owns 11,533,137 shares, or 24.2 percent of the total outstanding stock.

This stake, of course, makes of Baupost the largest institutional investor in the ViaSat, trailed by Bob Peck and Andy Raab’s FPR Partners, which last declared holding 4,707,085 shares of the company.

Among new stakes, Frontier Communications Corp FTR was the largest. After acquiring 13.5 million shares, worth roughly $66 million, the fund stands among the top 20 institutional investors in the company. The largest of them is, as usual, the Vanguard Group, with 96,560,704 shares, trailed by Jennison Associates, with 44,099,795 shares.

Another hedge fund that started a new stake in Frontier over the second quarter is Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors, which acquired 14,748,725 shares between April and June, inclusive.

Although the quarter did not witness any particularly bearish moves, the sale of 1,324,837 shares of Antero Resources Corp AR could be highlighted. Still, Baupost owns 8,022,863 shares of the company, worth more than ¼ of a billion dollars.

This position makes it the third largest institutional investor in Antero, only outranked by Salingstone Capital Partners, with 10,745,677 shares, and Warburg Pincus, which owns 200,165,909 shares, or roughly 76 percent of the total outstanding stock.