Hedge Funds Starboard and Third Point Find Ways to Play Alibaba

阿里巴巴是对冲基金的新苹果吗？十多年来，美国技术巨头苹果一直是许多长短股票对冲基金经理的几乎不变的最爱。但最近的投资活动和周围Alibaba Group Holdingsuggests that fund managers may have a new love interest. Players such as activist investor Starboard Value and event-driven Third Point are finding more than one way to play the Chinese e-commerce conglomerate and the tech sector at large.

但总是，时序至关重要。A massive sell-off in the Chinese equity market, driven by fears about excessive valuations and margin trading, and concerns over Beijing’s ability to stem the tide, has hit Alibaba, which closed at $79.62 on July 7, down from last November’s high of $119.45. The stock had already fallen 20 percent in the first quarter of this year, after the Hangzhou-based company missed earnings estimates. The smartest way to play Alibaba this year might have been to skip it — and invest in eBay.

No such luck for $43 billion hedge fund firm Starboard Value. The New York–based activist fund and its CEO, Jeffrey Smith, have led a campaign to make Yahoo sell off its 35 percent stake in Alibaba. In March,雅虎首席执行官Marissa Mayer同意，基于加利福尼亚州的The Sunnyvale，基于加利福尼亚的技术和Web服务提供商会这样做。雅虎股东将在包括阿里巴巴股权的新业务中收到股票。该公司表示，它预计将在年底划分。右舷 - 正在推动雅虎的其他变化，包括雅虎日本股权的税收高效销售 - 雅虎投资者的同伴认为公司的零件的总和价值超过当前估值。

其他对冲基金经理在第一季度结束时具有相当大的雅虎股份，包括格士资本合作伙伴，绿灯资本，杰特资本管理，猫头鹰克雷克资产管理和罗伊斯通资本管理，根据对称的纽约的数据公司追踪hedge funds’ U.S. equity holdings.

Starboard is among the hedge funds to have doubled down by also taking a direct stake in Alibaba, whose $25 billionSeptember 2014 listing on the New York Stock Exchangewas the largest initial public offering ever. As of March 30, Starboard had an $18.7 million stake. At first quarter’s end, hedge funds owned 2 percent of Alibaba’s equity capital, according to research from Goldman, Sachs & Co. That compares with 14 percent for both Yahoo and eBay, and 3 percent for Apple. Tiger Global Management, which famously got into Alibaba pre-IPO, continued to hold a $557 million position through that quarter. The New York–based firm, which manages $6 billion, didn’t have a stake in Yahoo.

一个对冲基金在第一季度阿里巴巴和雅虎缺席的缺席是纽约的Third Point。Headed by CEODaniel Loeb，174亿美元的公司在2011年举行了对雅虎的活动竞选活动，这项努力导致Mayer担任首席执行官。但到去年年初，Loeb完全退出了他的雅虎的位置，并辞职了他的董事会席位。

As of last September, Third Point had a $640 million stake in Alibaba, according to the firm’s 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Loeb, who had previously written with enthusiasm about the Chinese Internet giant in a 2012 investor letter, contended in his third-quarter 2014 letter that “the success of阿里巴巴的上市表明我们认为我们并不孤单，即该公司被定位为中国电子商务Juggernaut。阿里巴巴的指标应该吸引增长，加速和价值投资者。“

By the first quarter of this year, Third Point had sold off all of its direct Alibaba stake. At the time of its IPO, Loeb was already looking beyond shares in the company itself to its辅助业务, which include a cloud computing operation, a logistics joint venture and Alipay, an escrow payment service company. Loeb argued that these “hidden” assets “represent underappreciated sources of value.”

Loeb扮演阿里巴巴的另一种方式是通过Softbank Corp.的股权，由亿万富翁Masayoshi Son，日本电信和技术公司在东京证券交易所交易。目前热衷于日本的股权机会，尤其是Softbank，尤其是因为它在阿里巴巴有37％的股权，他在2014年5月的投资者信中得到了显着低估的。

If all of these riffs on Alibaba weren’t enough, Loeb has also claimed that Third Point’s work on the stock influenced his firm’s thinking about another e-commerce player, eBay. In particular, he told investors that the team’s Alibaba efforts had paid dividends when it came to eBay and PayPal, the online payment company that is about to be spun out from eBay.

“Our work on Alibaba since 2011 had persuaded us of the power of the marketplace model in e-commerce, and our work on Alipay convinced us that PayPal was an incredibly well-positioned global brand with the potential to become a leading player in mobile payments,” Loeb wrote in his October 2014 investor letter. EBay is spinning out PayPal after having been pushed byactivist investor Carl Icahn, who has a $2.67 billion investment in the San Jose, California–based company, Symmetric reports.

Switching Alibaba for eBay looks like a smart move: Since the former’s IPO its stock has fallen 15.2 percent as of July 7, while eBay gained 18.3 percent during the same period. (Cupertino, California–based Apple is even stronger: It climbed 24.5 percent over that time frame, proving why it remains a staple among hedge fund managers.) Yahoo has also suffered, plunging 24.3 percent year-to-date through July 7.

对冲基金不是唯一仍然热衷于阿里巴巴的投资者;它也有硅谷的粉丝。根据其最新申请，根据其最新申请，旧金山资本管理Mark Zuckerberg和其他Facebook员工的旧金山的家庭办公室，在阿里巴巴拥有超过1.5亿美元。

Visit Imogen Rose-Smith’sblogand follow her on Twitter at@imogennyc。