Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, 45 years old, has a fantastic background. He has a degree in Economics from Yale University and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. He also once worked at Morgan Stanley and Mark Kingdon’s hedge fund Kingdon Capital Management. Now, he is the partner of Eagle Capital Management, a New York based hedge fund founded by his father, Ravenel Boykin Curry III. Concentrated on identifying undervalued companies, Eagle Capital Management historically beats the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 Value Indexes. The fund returned 21% last year, beating the 15.1% return of S&P 500 and the 15.5% of Russell 1000. Since its inception in 1988, Eagle generated a cumulative return of 2,031% while S&P 500 and Russell 1000 returned 634% and 687% respectively during the same period.
Here are the top 20 positions in Eagle Capital Management's 13F portfolio at the end of September.
Company Name | Ticker | Value | Activity |
COCA COLA CO | 520648 | 3% | |
MICROSOFT CORP | 494865 | 4% | |
WAL MART STORES INC | 479719 | 5% | |
COMCAST CORP NEW | 451051 | 2% | |
AON CORP | 447737 | 5% | |
LIBERTY GLOBAL INC | 433491 | 3% | |
PRAXAIR INC | 379897 | 3% | |
ECOLAB INC | 358119 | 0% | |
UNITEDHEALTH GROUP | 352122 | 3% | |
PEPSICO INC | 338138 | 4% | |
NEWS CORP | 337561 | 10% | |
3M CO | 327625 | 6% | |
BERKLEY W R CORP | 306877 | 3% | |
KRAFT FOODS INC | KFT | 298478 | 4% |
ALTERA CORP | 256965 | 4% | |
WASTE MANAGEMENT | 253194 | 2% | |
NOBLE ENERGY INC | 252179 | 7% | |
LOEWS CORP | 231021 | 8% | |
VODAFONE GROUP | 230575 | 3% | |
THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC | 225195 | 3% |
Curry reduced his portfolio value from $9.8 billion at the end of June to $8.8 billion at the end of September. But the number of positions of the fund was increased from 55 to 57. Eagle Capital Management opened four new positions while sold out two positions: Chubb Corp (CB) and Visa Inc (V). CB returned 9.52% and V returned 6.19% since the end of September, during which SPY gained 7.80%.
On the other hand, Curry opened new positions in News Corp Ltd Class B (NWS), Nalco Holdings Co (NLC), Intel (INTC), and Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class A (BRK-A). Curry also had $338 million invested in News Corp Ltd Class A (NWSA) and $362,000 invested in Berkshire Hathaway Class B (BRK-B). NLC returned 8.83% and INTC returned 14.85% since the end of September, both beating the market. NWS returned 7.82%, slightly higher than the market’s 7.80%, while BRK-A returned 5.70%.
The top three positions of Eagle Capital Management at the end of September were Coca Cola (KO), Microsoft Corp (MSFT) and Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT). Curry increased his KO position by 3% to $521 million, his position in MSFT by 4% to $495 million, and his WMT position by 5% to $480 million. Since the end of the third quarter, KO lost 0.25% and MSFT returned 2.43%, but WMT gained 10.27% during the same period. Additionally, these three stocks are quite popular among hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey. For instance, Warren Buffett had $13.5 billion and $2.0 billion invested in KO and WMT respectively. MSFT is the third most popular stock among hedge funds.
Eagle Capital Management has a strong track record. We like their value investing philosophy. We believe that investors will be able to beat the market in the long term by focusing on Eagle Capital Management’s best stock picks.
