- Billionaire Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital is buying managed-care stocks, as well as “secular winners” in “Chinese internet land” during the market selloff caused by the novel coronavirus.
- The strategy for Ainslie, who recently said at an Economic Club of New York event that he was worried his generation would be remembered for its greed, is to “take advantage of the panic.”
- Alibaba, Google, and Monster Energy made up some of Maverick’s biggest holdings as of the end of 2019.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Billionaire Lee Ainslie’s Maverick Capital is focused on taking “advantage of the panic” the novel coronavirus has caused in the markets, the hedge fund told investors in a note on Friday.
The firm said in the note, which was originally reported by industry publication ValueWalk, that Maverick has added “great companies/secular winners that were previously priced out of our range (or that were already in our portfolio and sold off for no good reason)” without naming specific stocks. Still, the sectors Maverick highlights shed some light on what companies the roughly $9 billion hedge fund might have invested in.
“We have taken advantage of both political and coronavirus fears to add exposure in managed care, we have taken advantage of weakness in China to add to long-term secular winners in Chinese internet land, and we have added some Tech names that benefit from secular tailwinds,” reads the note.
Ainslie’s firm includes Alibaba, Google, and Netflix among its top 10 holdings, as of the end of 2019, regulatory filings show.
The note said that Maverick has “also added to portfolio names that we see as secular winners/great business models in Consumer, Financials and Tech,” while the firm’s short portfolio added a “few new names where temporary coronavirus impacts have been capitalized to a degree that is not warranted in our view.”
Among the firm’s consumer holdings, Monster Energy was its largest, as of the end of 2019, and the firm is also heavily invested in the Brazilian financial sector with big holdings in broker XP and financial technology firm StoneCo.
Ainslie, who said at a recent Economic Club of New York event that he was worried his generation was going to be remembered for its greed, considers the current environment to be a “clean sheet of paper exercise.”
“Having been through these types of situations before (though not exactly like this one) – we generally follow the same playbook,” and buy stocks that have quickly fallen in value but not changed much fundamentally.
Maverick did not immediately return a request for comment.
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