Hedge Funds Go Gaga For Google (Update 1)
Updated from 11:49 a.m. EST to include additional hedge funds and updated share price.
NEW YORK (
) -
(GOOG) - Get Report
was the object of many desires during the fourth quarter, as several large hedge fund investors added to their positions in the Internet search giant.
Legendary hedge fund investors such as George Soros, Lee Ainslie, and Stevie Cohen all added to their stakes during the fourth quarter.
|
During the fourth quarter, Google shares soared, gaining 25.4% in value. This came even as the company missed
blaming foreign currency headwinds and higher operating expenses during the quarter.
Here is a list of what hedge fund investors added or subtracted from their Google positions during the fourth quarter:
Tiger Global Management
-- The hedge fund, run by Chase Coleman, added 660,259 shares during the quarter, bringing the fund's stake to 725,409 shares.
Tiger Global Management is the offspring of Tiger Management, the legendary hedge fun run by Julian Robertson.
D.E. Shaw
-- One of the world's largest hedge funds, New York-based D.E. Shaw added 234,543 shares of Google. D.E. Shaw's stake in the Internet search giant now stands at 669,768 shares.
Soros Family Fund
-- George Soros has retired from running other people's money, but the family fund added 258,774 shares of Google during the quarter, bringing its stake to 259,000 shares. Soros drastically increased his stake, perhaps seeing the future monetization of mobile advertising that so many have talked about.
Maverick Capital
-- Maverick Capital, run by Lee S. Ainslie, a noted tech investor, initiated a stake in Google during the fourth quarter, adding 224,000 shares.
Like Tiger Global Management, Ainslie's Maverick Capital is another offspring of Robertson's Tiger Management family.
Highbridge Capital
--Highbridge, the hedge fund owned by
J.P. Morgan
, cut its stake to 188,138 shares. That is a decline of 292,876 shares.
Citadel Advisors
--Run by hedge fund stalwart Ken Griffin, Citadel sliced its Google stake nearly in half, selling 182,273 shares to leave it with 182,881 shares in its portfolio as of the end of 2011.
SAC Capital Advisors
-- Stevie Cohen, the legendary and often ruthless trader, increased his stake by 121,571 shares during the quarter, for a total of 191,699 shares.
Renaissance Technologies
-- One of the world's most respected quant funds, Renaissance Technologies cut its stake in Google by 23,242 shares to 84,000.
Renaissance was founded by James Simons in 1982. Simons is no longer the CEO of Renaissance, but the nonexecutive chairman. He is a former mathematician and former code breaker at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit research organization that has performed work for the Department of Defense.
Google shares are lower in Wednesday trading, off 0.5% to $606.61.
To see the rest of Renaissance Technologies portfolio, visit the
page on Stockpickr.
Interested in more on Google? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for
this stock
.
Check out our new tech blog,
Tech Trends
.
--
Written by Chris Ciaccia in New York
>To follow the writer on Twitter, go to
http://twitter.com/commodity_bull
.
>To submit a news tip, send an email to:
