May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Jeffrey Vinik, the Boston hedge-fund manager who formerly ran the Fidelity Magellan Fund, increased his U.S. stock holdings more than 11-fold during the first quarter with an emphasis on commodity-related shares.
Vinik, the manager of JNV Partners LP, held stocks with a market value of $4.66 billion at March 31, up from $411.8 million at Dec. 31, according to a Form 13F filed yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The largest bet was a $296 million stake in Oil Services HOLDR Trust, an exchange- traded fund that owns shares of companies involved in drilling and other exploration-related tasks, including Houston-based Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd. of Vernier, Switzerland.Vinik, 51, is known for making big moves in and out of economic sectors by trading individual stocks and using leverage to amplify his bets. In recent years, he has also increased investments in ETFs, the term for funds that trade on stock exchanges, allowing investors to buy and sell them throughout the day.Vinik did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. Mark Hostetter, the chief executive officer of Vinik Asset Management, declined to comment.According to yesterday’s filing, Vinik invested in about 150 stocks as of March 31, up from 31 at the end of last year. He tripled his stake in Apple Inc. to 443,500 shares, acquired 800,000 shares of Deere & Co. and bought 1.25 million shares of FedEx Corp. with a stock-market value of $116.9 million at the end of the first quarter.Buys SPDR GoldVinik’s holdings in energy, metals and natural resources stocks were valued at about $1.05 billion at March 31, up from about $39 million at Dec. 31, according to the filing. These holdings, which include a $111.9 million stake in the SPDR Gold Trust and $86.7 million of shares in the Brazilian mining company Vale SA, had declined in value by about 10 percent since March 31, based on yesterday’s closing prices.Vinik managed Fidelity Magellan from July 1992 until May 1996, when it ranked as the world’s largest mutual fund with more than $56 billion in assets. He established JNV Overseas in 2004 to invest his own money along with cash from friends, family and a few outside investors, including billionaire George Soros, people familiar with the fund have said.Money managers who oversee $100 million or more of equities traded on U.S. exchanges must file a Form 13F listing the holdings each quarter. The filing, which includes convertible bonds as well as funds and ETFs, is due 45 days after the quarter’s end.--Editors: Steven Crabill, Josh Friedman
To contact the reporter on this story: Miles Weiss in Washington at mweiss@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christian Baumgaertel at cbaumgaertel@bloomberg.net
