The Morning Brief: Greenlight Takes Stakes in AerCap, Chicago Bridge and GM

David Einhorn’sGreenlight Capitalhas established three new long positions, according to its first quarter report obtained byAlpha. The New York fund, which lost 1.7 percent in the March period — roughly in line with what we earlier reported — said it made a new investment inAerCap控股, the aircraft leasing giant. Greenlight says last year AerCap acquired AIG’s leasing business on the cheap. “The company has been well managed and appears poised to grow earnings at a double-digit clip for the next several years,” the hedge fund states in the report, adding that it paid an average price of $41.02 for its stake. Greenlight also took a new position in Chicago Bridge & Iron, the engineering and construction firm with a big exposure to the energy sector. Greenlight believes the company’s strong backlog of orders will support earnings for several years even if oil prices remain low. It paid an average price of $42.93. Finally, Greenlight said it got back intoGeneral Motorsat $34.62. The firm sold its previous stake in early 2014 after holding it for three years. Greenlight says raw materials costs are low and the worst of the recalls are behind the company

Greenlight also closed out three “losing shorts that fell victim to takeovers.” They include supermarket chainSafeway, closed with a 31 percent loss after it was acquired by Albertson’s/Cerberus; chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor, acquired by NXP Semiconductors, resulting in a negative 71 percent internal rate of return; and Lorillard Tobacco , acquired by Reynolds American. The Lorillard short was rolled into a short of Reynolds.

___

HFR says the total amount of assets in hedge funds rose to $2.94 trillion at the end of March, up $95 billion from December. This includes $18.2 billion in net new capital, the largest net inflow since the second quarter of 2014, according to the Chicago firm. EVestment had calculated $3.1 trillion in total assets for the industry.

___

Viking Global Investorssaid it established a new 6.3 percent position in Envision Healthcare Holdings, according to a regulatory filing dated April 9. The Greenwich, Connecticut hedge fund firm did not previously own shares of the provider of healthcare-related services, formerly called Emergency Medical Services Corp. At year-end, New York-based Oz Management was among the top-10 holders of Envision with 2.48 percent of the shares.

___

Tiger Global Managementled a new $50 million round of financing for Freshdesk, a San Francisco-based customer support software provider. This is at least the third investment in the company made by the venture capital arm of the New York investment firm. “The new round of funding will help the company further invest in its products and scale to meet fast-growing demand for its Freshdesk and Freshservice support platforms,” the company said in a press release.