学游的偶像Q2新动向

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David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, Inc.


Einhorn, Loeb upped stakes in health insurers
Hedge-fund gurus’ strategy apparently backfires with court ruling

By Russ Britt, MarketWatch

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — While hospital and insurance executives anxiously awaited a critical Supreme Court decision on the future of President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul bill, hedge fund gurus David Einhorn and Daniel Loeb were gambling that the legislation would be overturned, documents indicate.

Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital Inc. added stakes in virtually all major insurers, as did Loeb’s Third Point LLC during the second quarter, 13F filings released late Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Further, Einhorn sold off shares of hospital operator HCA Inc. (NYSE:HCA)  during the period from April 1 to June 30.

Had the high court struck down the controversial law, it was expected to boost the fortunes of insurers while scuttling the shares of hospital companies like HCA. But the wager seems to have backfired, as the court voted to uphold the law on June 28, just as the quarter was about to end.

Further, all major insurers’ shares were down for the second quarter, and all major insurers acquired by the two have also declined since the ruling.

It’s not clear, though, when Einhorn and Loeb acquired their stakes in the companies and if they lost money. It’s also uncertain whether the two hedge funds have sold off their stakes since June 30.

But it appears that at least Einhorn retained some of his stakes in anticipation that the election could result in the health bill being gutted.

“While the stocks are already cheap, there is additional unpriced upside in the possibility that the election changes the political landscape, resulting in a possible modification or repeal of Obamacare,” Greenlight wrote in a July 23 letter to investors.

During the quarter, Third Point added stakes in Aetna Inc. (NYSE:AET)  , Cigna Corp. (NYSE:CI)  , Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM)  , UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH)  and WellPoint Inc. The total for all five was more than 5.7 million shares with a value of $306 million.

Greenlight purchased shares in all the same companies as Third Point, as well as Coventry Health Care Inc. (NYSE:CVH)  For Greenlight, though, numbers show his firm’s stake in health care was much bigger. Greenlight documents show it held 22.1 million shares in the six stocks with a total value of roughly $1 billion at quarter’s end.

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