Andreas Halvorsen’s Top 5 Health Care Positions as of the 3rd Quarter

According to current portfolio statistics, a Premium feature of GuruFocus, the top five health care positions in Andreas Halvorsen (Trades, Portfolio)’s equity portfolio as of the third quarter are Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp. (NASDAQ:ADPT), Centene Corp. (NYSE:CNC), BridgeBio Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ:BBIO), Boston Scientific Corp. (NYSE:BSX) and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO). This week, Halvorsen revealed a slight reduction to his Adaptive Biotechnologies position according to GuruFocus Real-Time Picks, which is also a Premium feature.

Prior to founding Viking Global in 1999, Halvorsen worked as senior managing director and director of equities at Julian Robertson (Trades, Portfolio)’s Tiger Management. The Norwegian-born investor also worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS).

Viking Global employs a research-intensive, long-term focused investment approach. The Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm selects equity investments across industries and geographies based on a thorough assessment of a company’s fundamental data, management teams and industry trends.

As of the third-quarter portfolio filing, Viking Global’s $27.68 billion equity portfolio contains 87 stocks with 32 new positions and a turnover ratio 33%. The health care sector occupies 30.30% of the portfolio, down from the second-quarter weight of 32.64%.

Adaptive Biotechnologies

Viking revealed this week that it owned 29,993,708 shares of Adaptive Biotechnologies as of Dec. 14, down 1 million shares or 3.23% from the Nov. 11 holding of 30,993,708 shares. Shares of the Seattle-based clinical-stage biotech company traded around $55.65 on the day of the transaction.

According to GuruFocus, Adaptive Biotech’s cash-to-debt, equity-to-asset and debt-to-equity ratios outperform over 55% of global competitors, suggesting above-average financial strength.

Centene

Viking owns 17,445,560 shares of Centene, giving the stake 3.68% equity portfolio weight.

The St. Louis-based company offers government-sponsored health care plans, including Medicare and Medicaid. GuruFocus ranks Centene’s profitability 8 out of 10, driven by a 4.5-star business predictability rank and a three-year revenue growth rate that outperforms over 72% of global competitors. Despite this, profit margins and returns are underperforming over 65% of global companies that provide health care plans.

Other gurus with holdings in Centene include the Vanguard Health Care Fund (Trades, Portfolio) and Pioneer Investments (Trades, Portfolio).

BridgeBio Pharma

Viking owns 26,620,991 shares of BridgeBio Pharma, giving the position 3.61% equity portfolio weight.

The Palo Alto, California-based company develops transformative medicines to treat patients with diseases that arise from defects in a single gene. According to GuruFocus, BridgeBio Pharma’s cash-to-debt ratio of 1.47 underperforms 76.73% of global competitors, suggesting low financial strength.

Boston Scientific

Viking owns 18,829,730 shares of Boston Scientific, giving the stake 2.60% equity portfolio weight.

GuruFocus ranks the Massachusetts-based medical device company’s profitability 6 out of 10: Operating margins are outperforming 63.77% of global competitors despite a three-year revenue growth rate outperforming just over 57% of global medical device companies.

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Viking owns 1,377,223 shares of Thermo Fisher Scientific, giving the holding 2.20% equity portfolio weight.

GuruFocus ranks the Waltham, Massachusetts-based medical research company’s profitability 9 out of 10 on several positive investing signs, which include a high Piotroski F-score of 8, a five-star business predictability rank and an operating margin that has increased approximately 6.3% per year on average over the past five years and is outperforming over 82% of global competitors.

Disclosure: The author has no positions in the stocks mentioned. Except for the real-time trade in Adapt Biotech, the mention of trades are as of the third-quarter portfolio filing and do not reflect trades made in October-December.

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