Soros Takes a Stake in Microsoft

November 15, 2013 Leave a comment

Nov 14, 2013

Soros Takes a Stake in Microsoft

By Geoffrey Rogow

Soros Fund Management LLC purchased a significant new stake inMicrosoft Corp. in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, as the technology giant continues to search for a new chief executive amid a series of broad company changes. The hedge fund, founded by billionaire investor George Soros, held firm its stake in nutrition company Herbalife Ltd., but lowered its stakes in J.C. Penney Co. and Google Inc. The fund raised its stake inChevron Corp. and purchased a new stake of 1.6 million shares in FedEx Corp.Mr. Soros’s apparent push into Microsoft comes on the heels of CEO Steve Ballmerannouncing his sudden retirement in late August from the firm where he had worked for more than three decades. Mr. Ballmer and company founder Bill Gates had built Microsoft into a technology giant, but the company has found its overall influence weakened by rivals such as Apple and Google. As of Sept. 30, Mr. Soros owned 12.6 million shares of Microsoft.

Overall in the third quarter, the value of Mr. Soros’s holdings fell slightly to $9.1 billion from $9.2 billion at the end of the second quarter, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For the quarter, Mr. Soros’s stake in nutrition company Herbalife stayed flat at 5.04 million shares, although the value of that holding rose more than 50%. Herbalife has faced stiff criticism from fellow hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman, who has accused it of operating a pyramid scheme.

Mr. Soros’s fund, which returned cash to outside investors last year, invests money for Mr. Soros and his family.

Investors who manage more than $100 million are required to disclose most securities holdings within a month and a half of the end of a quarter. The filings give the public a relatively fresh look at the portfolios of well-known investors. The third-quarter deadline was Thursday.

Filed under TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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