Daniel S. Loeb may have broken the news of his firm’s position in FedEx earlier this week, but it turns out that at least two his fellow hedge fund moguls had the same idea in the third quarter.
The firms of three top investors â€" Mr. Loeb, George Soros and John Paulson â€" disclosed new positions in FedEx on Thursday as part of their quarterly ownership disclosures.
Here’s how it breaks down:
- Third Point said that it had accumulated two million shares in the third quarter.
- Soros Fund Management disclosed that it had bought 1.5 million shares and call options representing an additional 375,000 shares.
- Paulson & Company showed that it had bought 646,800 shares.
It’s a bit curious that all three purchased positions in FedEx during the same quarter. Perhaps they were inspired after the company’s stock began rising this summer, when investors speculated that the delivery service would be the subject of an activist campaign.
But the hedge fund at the center of those rumors wasn’t any of them: It was William A. Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management, which said in July that it was building a position in a large-capitalization investment-grade company that was trading at a lower value than its main competitor.
That turned out to be Air Products and Chemicals. Pershing’s latest investment disclosure showed that the hedge fund had not bought into FedEx.
FedEx has already made efforts to improve its stock price all the same, including a share-buyback program and cost-cutting efforts that include staff buyouts and lower spending on new planes.
While early, that campaign may already be bearing fruit: FedEx’s profit for the quarter ended Aug. 31 rose 6.5 percent compared with results in the period a year earlier, to $489 million.
What Third Point and its rivals hope will happen at FedEx going forward is unclear. But Mr. Loeb disclosed at the DealBook conference on Tuesday that he met with the company’s founder and chief executive, Frederick W. Smith, at FedEx’s headquarters in Memphis last month.
Mr. Loeb had nothing but praise for the company chief, whom he described as “great†and “absolutely not†someone he wanted to oust.
“We had a very constructive discussion about the company,†the hedge fund manager said. “We had some ideas, we shared them. I think he disabused us of some of our notions. Life goes on.â€
