Bearish Baupost Making Selected Buys (ANV, AVEO, PDLI, BBEP, ENZN, CSE, ITRN, VSAT, NWSA)

In 2010, legendary Boston-based hedge fund manager Seth Klarman was a bearish voice among the bulls, noting that the government is “kicking problems down the road” with bailout plans and extended periods of low interest rates.

More recently, Baupost, which manages $24 billion, set up an office in London to take advantage of the sovereign debt crisis occuring in Europe. Given Baupost’s impressive track record — according to a 2008 item in the Harvard Bulletin, Baupost had posted an annual compound return of 20% in the prior 26 years — investors are always interested in its latest disclosed equity holdings.

The Baupost Group’s top-15 U.S.-listed equity holdings from the end of Q1 reveal that Klarman was doing some buying during the quarter, opening a new position in miner Allied Nevada Gold Corp (ANV) and adding to positions in AVEO Pharmaceuticals (AVEO) and PDL BioPharma (PDLI).

Elsewhere during Q1, Baupost reduced its holdings in master limited partnership BreitBurn Energy Partners (BBEP), biotech Enzon Pharmaceuticals (ENZN), commercial lender CapitalSource (CSE), and location-based services firm Ituran Location and Cntrl (ITRN).

Meanwhile, Klarman held steady in Baupost’s largest equity position, ViaSat (VSAT) and also maintained the fund’s position in long-held media giant News Corp (NWSA).

Looking at tickerspy.com’s graph charting the performance of Baupost’s top end-of-Q1 holdings so far in Q2, one can see that they are keeping pace with the market. If you want to see how your performance stacks up against Klarman’s or see some of Baupost’s other holdings, visit tickerspy.com to see the endowment’s top positions and a chart of their combined performance.

Pro portfolio performance is based on institutions’ top-15 holdings as disclosed in quarter-end filings with the SEC. Pro performance does not take into account additional holdings beyond the top 15 nor does it include positions that are not required to be disclosed by the SEC. As such, Pro portfolio performance should be considered an approximation and not a precise record of how an institution has performed over time.

Tags: ANV, AVEO, BBEP, CSE, ENZN, ITRN, NWSA, PDLI, VSAT