Last quarter,
Kyle Bass
had 18 percent of his portfolio weighted in tech stocks. In the
first quarter, that changed to 46 percent. The shift continues
his trend of making large bets on a certain sector each quarter.
In the third quarter of 2011 he was 46 percent in oil & gas,
and in the fourth he was 55 percent in financials. An overview of
Kyle Bass
' career and investment approach is
here
.
His top three new tech buys in the first quarter were: Alcatel
Ads (
ALU
), MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (
WFR
) and Tellabs Inc. (
TLAB
).
Bass bought 14,909,555 shares of
Alcatel Ads (
ALU
)
in the first quarter at an average price of $2.14, making it his
largest holding at 23.6 percent of his portfolio. It is currently
at $1.62 per share, near its 52-week low of $1.39 per share.
Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated
end-to-end voice and data communications solutions to established
and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide.
Alcatel Ads has a market cap of $3.9 billion; its shares were
traded at around $1.63 with a P/E ratio of 5.1 and P/S ratio of
0.2.
Alcatel stock has plunged 71.3 percent over the last year. In the
first quarter of 2012, Alcatel's revenue dropped 12.3 percent
year over year to $4.2 billion. Revenue fell 18% in its Networks
segment, 25 percent in its Optics division, 29.5 percent in its
Wireless division and 8.7 percent in the Wirelins division.
Revenues for its IP division increased 23.5 percent with
particular strength in the APAC and Americas regions, which both
grew more than 30 percent year over year. Service providers in
these areas are in the process of transforming their networks to
all-IP. Sales of its next-generations Networks also increased 23
percent.
Bass bought 3,588,952 shares of
MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (
WFR
)
at an average price of $4.35.
MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. is a global producer of
polysilicon and silicon wafers. MEMC Electronic Materials Inc.
has a market cap of $368.1 million; its shares were traded at
around $1.7 with and P/S ratio of 0.1.
MEMC Electronic Materials stock has declined 83 percent in the
last yearas it struggled with a challenging environment in both
the semiconductor and solar markets. In May, Standard &
Poor's downgraded the company's debt to junk status.
"The downgrade reflects our view that while the restructuring
announced in December 2011 may deliver longer-run benefits to the
company, cash flow will be negative in the first half of 2012 as
the company works through the cash costs of shuttering its
vulnerable solar materials business," S&P said in a
statement. "There is uncertainty as to whether solar panel
installations and sale prices will support a stabilization of
cash flows in a solar market that remains very challenging."
The same day, MEMC acknowledged S&P's action, saying in a
statement: ""We are disappointed with the rating change by
S&P," commented Brian Wuebbels, MEMC's Chief Financial
Officer, "but we are comfortable that our cash and liquidity
position is sufficient to meet our current cash needs. The credit
downgrade by S&P today will not adversely affect our current
access to our existing non-recourse construction revolver for
SunEdison construction activities."
MEMC's revenue increased from $1.2 billion in 2009 to $2.7
billion in 2011, but the company suffered a loss of $1.5 billion
in the fourth quarter of 2011 due to restructuring, impairments
and other charges. Net loss for the first quarter of 2012
improved to $92 billion. Revenue in its Solar Energy segment
declined 37 percent year over year to $303.2 million as the
company moved away from selling solar wafers.
Bass bought 2,191,238 shares of
Tellabs Inc. (
TLAB
)
at an average price of $4.
Tellabs helps the world's communications service providers build
tomorrow's converged networks of voice, data and video. Tellabs
Inc. has a market cap of $1.3 billion; its shares were traded at
around $3.57 with and P/S ratio of 1. The dividend yield of
Tellabs Inc. stocks is 2.3%.
Tellab's stock price has declined 20 percent over the last year.
In the first quarter of 2012, Tellabs' first quarter 2012 revenue
totaled $258 million, down from $322 in the year-ago quarter,
which the company called "consistent with industry trends."
In the fourth quarter, the company's revenue had also declined to
$317 from $410 million in the year-ago quarter. That quarter, it
decided to restructure its business to focus on packet optical
and mobile backhaul solutions, which caused it to have charges it
estimated at $107 million in the first quarter of 2012. In the
first quarter of 2012, the company reported a loss of $140
million including $113.7 million in pretax charges. The
restructuring included reducing the company's workforce by about
530 people.
See
Kyle Bass
' portfolio here. Also check out the Undervalued Stocks, Top
Growth Companies and High Yield stocks of Kyle Bass.About
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