13-Fs from Pershing Square, Sachem Head, Starboard Value, Eminence, and Maverick; Reader comments on the wine industry; Hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in New Zealand

1) It's always good practice to keep an eye on what the "smart money" is up to...

In Friday's e-mail, I shared a preliminary summary of the third-quarter 13-Fs for 38 of the largest, best-known money managers that my friend Scott Tashman of trading firm Outset Global sent me.

As a reminder, institutional investment managers with at least $100 million in assets under management have to file a 13-F every quarter – which discloses their equity holdings. These filings also show which stocks were bought and sold during the quarter.

In short, 13-Fs are an excellent place to look for investment ideas.

Over the weekend, Scott sent me data for 58 more managers, which I've included at the end of this e-mail. And below are summaries and commentary from some of the ones I know and/or respect the most...

First up, here's the summary from Scott for my college buddy Bill Ackman's fund, Pershing Square:

Note how little activity there is relative to almost every other manager – that reflects Bill's concentrated long-term investment approach, which mirrors my own.

In Friday's e-mail, I commented on Bill increasing Pershing's stake in apparel giant Nike (NKE) from 3.0 million to 16.3 million shares, but I didn't recognize the ticker SEG.

When I took a look, I realized why: it's a brand-new stock called Seaport Entertainment Group, which is a spinoff from real estate company Howard Hughes (HHH) that only started trading on August 1.

Every HHH shareholder received one share of SEG for every nine HHH shares, so Bill didn't actually buy SEG – rather, his 18,852,064 shares of HHH means Pershing now also owns 2,094,673 shares of SEG. (Pershing also participated in a rights offering last month – you can see the press release here: Seaport Entertainment Group Announces Closing of Rights Offering)

I have a long history with Howard Hughes, dating back to its spinoff from General Growth Properties 14 years ago, so I'm familiar with many of SEG's assets – especially South Street Seaport in New York City.

I haven't taken a look at it in years, but this spinoff looks interesting... so keep an eye out for my analysis of Seaport Entertainment in an upcoming e-mail.

Speaking of Pershing Square, Scott Ferguson was one of Bill's analysts alongside Mantle Ridge's Paul Hilal for many years before launching his own firm, Sachem Head... so I wasn't surprised to see him loading up on 547,500 shares of industrial gas company Air Products and Chemicals (APD):

Paul recently initiated an activist campaign at APD, which I covered in my October 7 and October 14 e-mails.

I was intrigued enough with APD that I conferred with my team here at Stansberry Research to look deeper into the company...

After doing our own work, we concluded that APD looked promising enough to recommend to subscribers of our flagship Stansberry's Investment Advisory newsletter, which we did in the most recent issue on November 1. (Subscribers can read it right here.)

If you aren't a Stansberry's Investment Advisory subscriber already, you can learn how to become one and get the exact details of our recommendation on APD – plus gain immediate access to our entire portfolio of other open recommendations – by clicking here.

Moving on in Scott's list, another activist – Jeff Smith of Starboard Value – established a new position in dating-app company Match Group (MTCH), which I pitched at the Stansberry Research Conference & Alliance Meeting last month (I shared my presentation in my November 8 e-mail):

Meanwhile, Ricky Sandler of Eminence Capital established a new position in amusement-park operator Six Flags Entertainment (FUN), which I wrote about in my May 29 e-mail:

And Lee Ainslie at Maverick Capital established a new position in apparel company Lululemon Athletica (LULU), which I wrote about on August 22 and August 23... added to his position in coffee giant Starbucks (SBUX), which I discussed on August 14 and October 24... and added to his position in Nvidia (NVDA), which I wrote about on September 5.

Here's the breakdown from Scott:

In summary, these are lots of interesting data points and one new idea, SEG, to pursue...

2) I'm always impressed by my readers...

In last Tuesday's e-mail, I shared what I learned about New Zealand's wine industry... and on Wednesday and Thursday, I did quick looks at five global wine and spirits companies – Constellation Brands (STZ), Diageo (DEO), Brown-Forman (BF-B), and Paris-based companies LVMH (MC.PA) and Pernod Ricard (RI.PA).

This led one of my readers, Michael Juergens, who helms the global wine practice at consulting giant Deloitte, to e-mail me his insights. They're fascinating, so I'm sharing them with his permission:

I see a lot of the industry trends and I think you may have missed the mark on New Zealand for a few reasons:

1. Global wine consumption is down and continuing to fall.
2. Boomers are drinking less wine, and Gen Z isn't making up the gap.
3. Wineries in NZ that are part of global portfolios (e.g., Pernod Ricard) represent such a tiny piece of the portfolio that it is [immaterial] financially. To put it in context, the region of Bordeaux alone produces probably four times as much wine as the entire country of NZ.
4. There is massive oversupply of grapes globally. Producers in Australia and Europe are being given government grants to rip out wine grapes.

I could go on, but you get the gist. It's probably not a great sector for investment right now, unless there's a real niche play (like Bhutan, or McBride Sisters in NZ, which is owned by black women and is a DEI industry darling right now).

I love New Zealand's wines and people, but I wouldn't be making any bets there right now.

Thank you, Michael!

I have no reason to question his conclusion that the wine industry, especially in New Zealand, isn't a great place to invest right now. But that's OK – it's only a tiny fraction of the businesses of the five global wine and spirits giants I mentioned above.

In particular, based on the quick first look last week and what I heard from dozens of readers, I think Constellation Brands and LVMH are worth a deeper dive... so stay tuned for upcoming e-mails with more analysis on those stocks.

And as always, you can send me an e-mail with feedback or your own insights on any topics I cover by clicking here.

3) My wife Susan and I flew to Taupō on New Zealand's North Island on Saturday. And on Sunday, we hiked the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing. We covered 13.4 miles and 2,850 feet of vertical over seven hours: more than five hours of hiking, and the rest of the time eating lunch and seeing the beautiful scenery.

Here are some pictures:

Best regards,

Whitney

P.S. Here's the full list from Scott of all the third-quarter 13-Fs he sent me: