Kian Ghazi co-founded Hawkshaw Capital Management, where he presently serves as a partner and portfolio manager, in 2002. Previously Ghazi worked as business services anayst at Lehman Brothers and was a senior investment professional at Midtown Capital Partners. Ghazi received his MBA from Wharton School of Business in 1995 and is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.
According to the latest 13F submission made to the SEC, Hawkshaw Capital Management owns a total of 14 stocks, valued at approximatly $129 million at the end of the first quarter. The fund’s holdings have declined about 13% since the previous quarter ($148 million, 4Q2010). Hawkshaw Capital has sold three positions and a call option and added one new long position to its portfolio since the previous quarter (4Q2010). A summary table of Hawkshaw Capital’s activities is below:
Company Name | Ticker | Value | Activity | Return |
CONSTANT CONTACT INC |
| Sold Out | -34,4% | |
CORPORATE EXECUTIVE BOARD CO | EXBD |
| Sold Out | -2,2% |
SONOSITE INC |
| Sold Out | 1,1% | |
UNIVERSAL TECHNICAL INSTITUTE IN |
| Sold Out | -3,3% | |
MARKET VECTORS E T F TRUST | 2544 | -63,9% | -8,8% | |
ANNTAYLOR STORES CORP | 6082 | -20,8% | -10,6% | |
DELL INC | 14110 | -5,5% | 9,6% | |
FROZEN FOOD EXPRESS INDS INC | 6192 | -2,0% | 10,8% | |
IAC INTERACTIVECORP | 7699 | 1,0% | 15,5% | |
ABERCROMBIE & FITCH CO | 11919 | 1,0% | 20,3% | |
SYMANTEC CORP | 17754 | 1,0% | -0,5% | |
SPDR GOLD TRUST | 7238 | 1,0% | 7,6% | |
KNOT INC | KNOT | 10909 | 1,8% | -21,3% |
ELECTRONIC ARTS INC | ERTS | 17792 | 2,0% | 21,9% |
AVIAT NETWORKS INC | 11289 | 2,1% | -12,2% | |
FALCONSTOR SOFTWARE INC | 1066 | 34,3% | -9,9% | |
SPDR S & P 500 ETF TRUST | 6683 | 86,0% | -2,7% | |
INGRAM MICRO INC | 7583 | New | -15,9% |
Hawkshaw Capital’s largest activity in the last quarter was the acquisition of 360,573 shares of Ingram Micro, valued at $7.5 million on March 31. Unluckily, Ingram Micro has lost almost 16% in value since the end of the first quarter. The stock has recently traded at $17.44 a share. Yale Fergang and Robert Medway’s Royal Capital still owns a significant long position at Ingram Micro despite a very slight trim off in the last quarter. David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, Patrick McCormack’s Tiger Consumer Management, and Martin Whitman’s Third Avenue Management hold similar positions where each owned roughly 52,000 shares of Ingram Micro at the end of the first quarter.
Electronic Arts Inc. and Symantec Corp. continue to occupy the top two spots on Hawkshaw’s portfolio. Hawkshaw added new shares onto its existing portfolio of Electronic Arts and made a nice return of almost 22% since the end of the last quarter. Another fund that has benefited from this sweet return is Ralph Whitworth’s Relational Investors where it held roughly 5 million shares of ERTS valued at $95 million at the end of March 2011. Hawkshaw has also increased its stakes at Symantec by 1% in the past quarter; however, it has been disappointed by SYMC’s lackluster performance of -0.5% since March-end. Sandy Nairn’s Edinburgh Partners was one of the other major stakeholders of SYMC that also has been disappointed by the stock’s performance.
Hawkshaw must also have been satisfied with the shining performance of Abercrombie & Fitch where it has generated a little over 20% return since the end of the first quarter. Foreseeing the potential, Hawkshaw has increased its stakes at Abercrombie by about 1% in the last quarter. Alan Fournier’s Pennant Capital Management is on the same boat with Hawkshaw, owning a long position of 3.3 million shares valued at $197 million at the end of the first quarter.
Another sucessful bet on Hawkshaw’s behalf in the first quarter was IAC Interactive Corp where it also chose to increase its stakes by about 1% and enjoyed a return of almost 16% since the end of March. D. E. Shaw has enjoyed the rally as well despite the small size IACI occupied on its aggregate portfolio.
The biggest disappointment on Hawkshaw’s side has been Knot Inc. The stock has lost a little over 21% since the end of the first quarter. Hawkshaw was bullish on the stock in the first quarter of 2011 where it increased its stake by 1.8% and the value of the stock on its portfolio reached almost $11 million. Wallace Weitz’s Wallace R. Weitz & Co. was another fund that was bullish on KNOT in the first quarter of 2011 but that got disappointed in the second quarter. The stock was recently trading at $9.86 a share.
Overall, Ghazi’s stock picks have showed strong positive performances since the end of the last quarter with only a couple of exceptions. We believe investors can benefit by following Ghazi’s transactions and be able to beat index funds.
Disclosure: I am long SPY.
