Maverick’s Ainslie Loads Up On Tech

Lee Ainslie is making a big bet on tech stocks. The co-founder and managing partner of hedge fund Maverick Capital Tuesday told the audience at the Value Investing Congress in New York that he has placed 17 percent of his roughly $11 billion in assets on technology, the biggest single sector bet the Tiger cub has ever made since launching Maverick in 1993.

“Their relative p/e is the cheapest they have been in 20 years,” Ainslie asserted. He also said they have especially high free cash flow yields spreads compared to Baa-rated bonds. Meanwhile, he thinks the group will benefit from the weaker dollar. Ainslie says tech is the only industry that gets more than 50 percent of its revenues from foreign customers.

He also pointed out the huge amount of cash on the companies’ balance sheets. He says it is being used for buybacks and acquisitions. In fact, announced buybacks are up 240 percent year to date. Ainslie said five tech stocks are important holdings: CommScope, Dell, Amdocs, Hewlett-Packard and Marvell Technology Group.In fact, at the end of the second quarter, he was the second largest holder of CommScope and the fourth largest holder of Marvell, his sixth largest holding overall.

Ainslie is the son of an Episcopalian headmaster who was recruited by Tiger founder Julian Robertson right out of the graduate school at the University of North Carolina--Robertson’s alma mater.