| Larry Robbins, Glenview Capital Management (Bloomberg) |
Larry Robbins’s New York-based Glenview Capital Management posted big losses last month in its two main hedge fund strategies.
The Glenview Opportunity funds, which are run with a more concentrated portfolio than the firm’s flagship strategy, lost more than 20 percent in September. As a result, the Opportunity strategy is down a similar amount for the year through September, having been roughly flat entering the month. The firm’s larger Glenview Capital flagship funds lost 13.5 percent in September and are down roughly the same amount for the year.
Glenview was apparently hurt by the collapse in a number of health care stocks. The sector had in recent quarters been very important to Glenview.
In the first quarter, for example, the Opportunity funds’ equity long portfolios gained between 9.7 percent and 10.2 percent, heavily driven by health care, which kicked in 8.5 percent to gross returns. The top five winners for the quarter were all health care stocks: Thermo Fisher Scientific, Endo International, Flextronics International, Anthem and Humana.
At the end of the second quarter, nine of Glenview’s 11 largest long holdings were healthcare stocks. Its two largest positions—Humana and Thermo Fisher Scientific—fell slightly in September. Other top holdings were mostly flat.
However, several major positions took a big beating. For example, drugmaker AbbVie fell nearly 13 percent last month. Tenet Healthcare Corp., which specializes in acute care hospitals and other healthcare facilities, fell 25 percent last month. Community Health Systems, another hospital management company, plunged 20 percent in September. Drugmaker Endo International lost 10 percent for the month.
Meanwhile, agriculture products giant Monsanto Co., one of the two non-health care companies among Glenview’s top holdings, lost about 12.6 percent last month.
Last year the Glenview Capital funds rose more than 14 percent, and the Opportunity funds grew about 25 percent, driven heavily by healthcare stocks. In 2013 the flagship funds advanced 44.29 percent, while the Opportunity funds surged 101.74 percent.
Robbins spent more than five years working for Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors, serving as a general partner and portfolio manager, before starting his New York hedge fund firm in 2000.
