George Soros’ Soros Fund Management LLC trimmed its stake in Herbalife Ltd in the fourth quarter after the stock climbed by at least 60 percent from when the billionaire’s family office purchased the shares last year.
Soros’ family office owned 3.2 million shares, or 3.2 percent, of the Cayman Islands-based nutritional weight loss and supplement company as of Dec. 31 last year, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday. The largest investor in Herbalife, Carl Icahn, maintained his 16.8 percent position, while Perry Capital LLC added to its holdings, regulatory filings show.
Soros’ money managers, who oversee US$25 billion for the billionaire, invested in Herbalife after Bill Ackman made a US$1 billion wager against the company in the final days of 2012.
Ackman, head of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, has said Herbalife operated like a Ponzi scheme, allegations the company has repeatedly denied. Soros, billionaire Icahn and Perry were among hedge-fund managers who took the other side of the trade, betting the shares would jump.
They climbed 145 percent last year including reinvested dividends.
Soros Fund Management, run by chief investment officer Scott Bessent, bought 4.9 percent of the company in the second quarter of last year, when the shares traded at an average price of US$42.58. They traded at an average of US$69.30 during the fourth quarter, and closed as high as US$80.81 in late December last year.
Ackman said in November last year that his Pershing Square had lost as much as US$500 million on the investment. In an interview on Bloomberg Television that month he said he “will take this to the end of the earth.”
Perry, based in New York, added 367,862 Herbalife shares in the fourth quarter to take its ownership to 3 million, or about 3 percent of the company. Hayman Capital Management LP, run by Kyle Bass, exited its investment selling 436,371 shares during the period.
Herbalife has dropped 16 percent this year. Ackman said earlier this week that his position is bigger now than it was when he first announced the trade, setting him up for a larger profit if the company collapses.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS