3 Of Seeking Alpha’s Best, Part III
Summary As a hedge fund manager, who do I think is worth following on SA? 3 (more) writers I take seriously and think you should too. This is the third in a continuing series. In Part I and Part II , I looked at six of Seeking Alpha ‘s best contributors. In this sequel, I offer three more worth following. I follow them closely and recommend that you do too; you will learn and profit from their expertise. Mike Winston Mike is a great idea-generator and friend. I interviewed him for my blog and listen carefully to his ideas. He is an expert on Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO ). If you are interested in the Yahoo! stub, check out Yahoo’s Cashless Spin-Off Has Strong Business Purposes: Employee Options And Merger Currency and The Yahoo Tax Myth . Heath Winter Heath Winter is a former colleague and longtime friend. He is particularly expert in options strategies around merger arbitrage. You should read all of his ideas, but one that appears to remain a particularly attractive opportunity today is OmniVision Technologies A Top Opportunity In The Merger Arbitrage Universe . OmniVision (NASDAQ: OVTI ) has a $1.04 net arbitrage spread, which offers a 12% annual return if the deal closes by next February. Jeremy Raper Jeremy Raper is responsible for some terrific investment ideas on both the long and short side. One portfolio overlap of ours has been Avolon (NYSE: AVOL ), which he discussed in Avolon: Growing, Underfollowed Business At Steep Discount To Comps, 40%+ Upside , Avolon Update: Impressive Q1 Execution, Valuation Gap Vs. Peers Will Continue To Narrow , and in his Quick Update On Avolon . The $0.52 net arbitrage spread offers a 4% annual return, if the deal closes by next March. Another idea worth studying is Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW ), which he presented in Monster Worldwide: Frightening History, But The Only Thing Scary Now Is The Upside . This stock has generated significant interest on Sifting the World . You are also welcome to follow me and my investment ideas here . I do not claim to be one of Seeking Alpha ‘s best, but I stumble upon a misplaced bet from time to time. Here is a bit more about me in case you are interested. About the Author I began my career conducting public policy research and investigative work on behalf of hedge funds and proprietary trading desks impacted by government and political risks. My research for clients such as leading hedge funds and banks included regulatory and antitrust analysis, as well as litigation and legislation tracking. This work provided actionable intelligence and risk assessment. I founded Rangeley Capital in 2007 in order to exploit the seams between other hedge funds’ mandates. Such situations include broken deals, volatile corporate transactions, and securities that are hard to hedge. Rangeley enters positions with DC risks where spreads have blown out more than is justified by analyzable exposures. The goal is to buy at discounts to the value of probability-weighted outcomes. The intention is to always underpay. Today, Rangeley owns a portfolio of event driven value investments. Positions are taken in order to maximize the expected value of our portfolios. They are sized to account for liquidity and downside. Rangeley’s Special Opportunities strategy launches in January 2016 under the leadership of Andrew Walker . Andrew focuses on small capitalization, under analyzed opportunities that lack a natural investor base capable of correcting mispricing. You can read about Rangeley’s past and our future . If you are an accredited investor who wants to learn more, please contact my colleague Rob Sterner at resterner@rangeleycapital.com for details about Rangeley Capital and our upcoming fund launch. If you would like to consider becoming a member of Sifting the World , just send me your e-mail address and I would be happy to offer you additional information about joining.