Sales of Two Holdings Have Greatest Impact on Robert Karr's Portfolio in Fourth Quarter

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Feb 24, 2015
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Guru Robert Karr (Trades, Portfolio), founder of Joho Capital, is known to prefer concentrated positions in new technologies. His transactions in the fourth quarter emphasized highly concentrated positions in internet-related stocks.

Sales of two of his holdings – Vipshop Holdings Ltd (VIPS, Financial) and Baidu Inc (BIDU, Financial) – had the greatest impact on Karr’s portfolio in the fourth quarter.

Karr sold his 2,117,000-share stake in Vipshop Holdings, China’s leading online discount retailer, for an average price of $21.1 per share. That sale had a -6.8% impact on Karr’s portfolio.

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Nine gurus – Paul Tudor Jones (Trades, Portfolio), Louis Moore Bacon (Trades, Portfolio), Steve Mandel (Trades, Portfolio), Pioneer Investments (Trades, Portfolio), George Soros (Trades, Portfolio), Chase Coleman (Trades, Portfolio), John Burbank (Trades, Portfolio), Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio) and Chris Davis (Trades, Portfolio) – have shares of Vipshop Holdings in their portfolios. Wasatch International Growth (Trades, Portfolio) sold its stake in Vipshop Holdings in the third quarter.

Karr also sold his stake in 58.com Inc (WUBA, Financial), a Chinese online marketplace.

Karr didn’t sell his entire stake in Baidu, a Chinese web services company, only about one-fifth of it. Karr sold 143,000 shares for an average price of $229.51 per share. That transaction had a -5.8% impact on his portfolio. Baidu is the seventh-largest holding in that portfolio.

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Twenty-two gurus – Howard Marks (Trades, Portfolio), John Burbank (Trades, Portfolio), Steven Cohen (Trades, Portfolio), Pioneer Investments (Trades, Portfolio), Andreas Halvorsen (Trades, Portfolio), John Rogers (Trades, Portfolio), Paul Tudor Jones (Trades, Portfolio), RS Investment Management (Trades, Portfolio), Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio), Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio), Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio), George Soros (Trades, Portfolio), Matthews China Fund (Trades, Portfolio), Ron Baron (Trades, Portfolio), Matthews Pacific Tiger Fund (Trades, Portfolio), Jean-Marie Eveillard (Trades, Portfolio), Julian Robertson (Trades, Portfolio), Frank Sands (Trades, Portfolio), Dodge & Cox, Steve Mandel (Trades, Portfolio), Louis Moore Bacon (Trades, Portfolio) and Chris Shumway (Trades, Portfolio) – have shares of Baidu in their portfolios. Lee Ainslie (Trades, Portfolio) sold his stake in the fourth quarter. Value Partners (Trades, Portfolio) sold its stake in the second quarter of 2014.

Karr added to four existing stakes in the fourth quarter – Google Inc (GOOG, Financial), Yelp Inc (YELP, Financial), Qunar Cayman Islands Ltd (QUNR, Financial) and Hexcel Corp (HXL, Financial).

Karr bought 37,700 shares of Google, a California-based company specializing in Internet-related services and products, for an average price of $538.02 per share. That purchase had a 3.8% impact on Karr’s portfolio.

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Karr purchased 290,000 shares of Yelp, a San Francisco-based company that develops, hosts and markets Yelp.com and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about local businesses, for an average price of $59 per share. The acquisition had a 3.02% impact on his portfolio.

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Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) and Steve Cohen have shares of Yelp in their portfolios. Paul Tudor Jones (Trades, Portfolio) and George Soros (Trades, Portfolio) sold their stakes in Yelp in the fourth quarter.

Karr sold portions of four other existing stakes – Veeco Instruments Inc (VECO, Financial), 21Vianet Group Inc (VNET, Financial), Mead Johnson Nutrition Co (MJN, Financial) and TAL Education Group (XRS), which is the largest stake in his portfolio.

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