Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Seth Klarman of Baupost Has a Large Postion in PDL Biopharma?

One thing that jumped out at me when I was doing research on take-over talk is how Seth Klarman of Baupost has 11% of his portfolio in PDL BioPharma (PDLI)

No. 2: PDL BioPharma Inc. (PDLI), Weightings: 10.91% - 15,559,608 Shares

Protein Design Labs Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and commercialization of novel therapies for inflammation and autoimmune diseases acute cardiac conditions and cancer. PDL BioPharma Inc. has a market cap of $855.39 million; its shares were traded at around $7.16 with a P/E ratio of 7.09 and P/S ratio of 2.91. The dividend yield of PDL BioPharma Inc. stocks is 13.97%.

Klarman assumed a small position (461,600 shares) in 1Q08 and then quickly build a large position (14.8 million shares) in 2Q08. His ownership has since maintained at a high level and in 1Q09, he bought about 800,000 share, bringing the total to 15.6 million shares.

That is quite a large part of a portfolio of an investing guru that has brought in big returns for decades. I wonder if he is looking for a takeover by Roche or is just investing heavily in an undervalued company. I mean a biotech that pays such a substantial dividend seems very rare and maybe Klarman understands that.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

HE HAS SOLD ALL HIS PDL SHARES (SEE SEC FILING)

Joemama said...

Not according to this SEC link:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1061768/000106176809000141/acn2q09.txt

It says he still has 12.6 million shares. He may have sold it since the filing (6/30/09) but there is no way to know that.