Just before activist investor Carl Icahn asked eBay to sell its PayPal payments platform, the e-commerce platform was a beloved bet among top hedge funds in the US in the fourth quarter, Reuters reported.
A new stake of 3,295,000 shares was taken by Farallon Capital Management in eBay. Before Icahn's proposal, Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors also took a new position of 854,800 shares, the report said.
The e-commerce firm also said on January 22 that Icahn had obtained a 0.82 stake in the firm earlier that month. Icahn is famous for getting substantial shares in firms and asking for management change, the report said. The newest quarterly disclosures of the Chairman of Icahn Enterprises seemed to confirm the timeline of eBay since they did not reveal a stake in the firm by December 31, 2013, the report said.
The confidence given in eBay's shares seem to indicate that key investors are seeing further gains. The firm's stock price increased 7.6% last year and so far this year, it has already risen 7.4%. On January 22, the price of eBay's stock rose up to 12% after it posted earnings that outperformed expectations and the stake of Icahn's stake, the report said.
There were also some hedge funds who did not believe in eBay in the fourth quarter. Regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Eric Mindich's Eton Park Capital reduced its holdings in the e-commerce from by over 2 million shares, although it still has a substantial take of 2.4 million shares, the report said.
Apple was another company favored by Icahn and other investors in the fourth quarter. Daniel Loeb's Third Point fund opened 100,000 shares in the iPhone maker while Blue Ridge also added 320,000 shares in the company. Icahn, meanwhile, has 4.7 million shares in Apple as of December. The activist investor tweeted late last month that he had purchased additional Apple stock worth half a billion dollars, Reuter reported.
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