Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global Investors took new positions in Lululemon Athletica and Sherwin-Williams in the first quarter, according to the hedge fund’s latest 13F filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Halvorsen, whose firm has about $52 billion in assets under management, bought more than 1.9 million shares of yogawear maker Lululemon, valued at $690 million at the end of the first quarter. The stock has rallied 16% this year, far outpacing the S & P 500. Halvorsen also built a 2.25 million-share stake in paint maker Sherwin-Williams, valued at $506 million. The stock has slipped 6% this year. Fellow hedge fund manager Dan Sundheim of DQ Capital Partners dumped his entire holding in Sherwin-Williams in the first quarter. Elsewhere, the Norwegian hedge fund manager increased his holdings in tech, insurance and financial stocks such as UnitedHealth (up 66%), McKesson (up 46%), Fortinet (up 67%) and CSX (up 42%). Halvorsen zeroed out his prior holdings in stocks including Uber , Brookfield and RH . Visa was Viking Global’s top holding in the quarter, with a $1.48 billion position. The payment stock is up 11% this year, bucking a 7% decline in the S & P 500 Financials Index. A 46% increase to Halvorsen’s McKesson stake put the stock in the number two slot among his biggest holdings, at $1.14 billion. But Halvorsen’s buy into McKesson, which is up almost 6% year to date, differed from some other big investors. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway decreased its position by about 20% in the last quarter. Of Halvorsen’s top 10 holdings, all were increased stakes in the quarter besides Amazon, which was cut almost 40%. Lululemon was the only new holding in the quarter to make the list of top 10 largest. Money managers who oversee more than $100 million in assets must disclose long positions to the Securities and Exchange Commission 45 days after the end of a quarter. That makes it possible that Halvorsen has already made changes to his holdings in the current quarter. Correction: A previous version misstated Viking Global’s actions in the first quarter as a result of an incorrect quarterly comparison.
