Well, we're in good company. thestreet.com article says Gates is nibbling...
A Voyeur's Guide to Investing
By John Rubino
Special to TheStreet.com
9/24/99 11:11 AM ET
George Soros can run, but he can't hide.
When the esteemed hedge fund manager bought a big piece
of biotech firm ViroPharma (VPHM:Nasdaq) this past May,
I was there. When he moved in on Internet retailer Bluefly
(BFLY:Nasdaq) in August, I knew about it within hours.
How? Piece of cake. I just logged onto one of the new
generation of EDGAR sites (see my July 16 column for more
on these sites), which tell you what the heavy hitters are
swinging at.
Here's how it works: When somebody like Soros buys more
than 5% of a company's stock, he has to file form 13-D with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. A mutual fund
making a big purchase is required to file a 13-G, while
company insiders who sell stock file a 144. People who own
big stakes in public companies file forms 3 and 4.
This stuff has been available in raw (i.e., unintelligible) form
for years. But with the search engines developed by Edgar
Online and 10-K Wizard it's now possible to type in some
names and call up every mention of those persons in any
filing in the past year. You can find out which boards they
serve on, how much they're paid, how much stock they own,
and of course, what they're buying and selling. The services
will even email you automatically when the object of your
interest appears in a filing.
Think about what this means: Soros' 80-hour-a-week
analysts X-ray a company's finances, grill its CEO and quiz
its suppliers and competitors. They convince the boss that
they've found a diamond in the rough, and he buys in big.
Then he files a 13-D or 13-G, and we get the benefit of all
their hard work virtually for free, just by typing in "George
Soros," or reading our email.
But hey, why stop with one legend? Let's see what some
other big names are up to:
Warren Buffett? Hmm, not much, really. Guess he's
serious about the long-term buy-and-hold thing. But ex-junk
bond king Mike Milken is back in the flow, creating a
full-service education company under the Knowledge
Universe umbrella. Most of the pieces are still private, but
he does own chunks of consulting firm Nextera
(NXRA:Nasdaq) and school operator Nobel Learning
Communities (NLCI:Nasdaq).
Bill Gates, like Milken, is doing most of his empire building
via private companies. But he's been nibbling at biotech firms
Corixa (CRXA:Nasdaq) and ICOS (ICOS:Nasdaq).
For real action, check out Microsoft's (MSFT:Nasdaq) other
co-founder, Paul Allen. Through his Vulcan Ventures, he's
been converting his Windows monopoly into stakes in
VaxGen (VXGN:Nasdaq), a biotech company working on an
AIDS vaccine; High Speed Access (HSAC:Nasdaq), a
provider of (how clever) high-speed Internet access; Onsale
(ONSL:Nasdaq), an electronic retailer; Globalnet Financial
(GLBN:Nasdaq), an online financial services firm; and
Metricom (MCOM:Nasdaq), a wireless networking
company.
Then there are the mutual funds. Fidelity Magellan is closed
to new investors, but it recently filed 13-Gs for Extended
Stay America (ESA:NYSE) and Polo Ralph Lauren
(RL:NYSE). The always-hot Janus fund family has filed 41
13-Gs in the past year, most recently for Amazon.com
(AMZN:Nasdaq), PSINet (PSIX:Nasdaq) (preferred stock),
SDL (SDLI:Nasdaq) and Paychex (PAYX:Nasdaq).
A few thoughts on building a portfolio this way:
Don't expect perfection from these search engines. They
often seem to miss a lot (such as when 10-K Wizard found
only three proxies for Buffett). Searches involving forms 3, 4,
and 144 sometimes turn up nothing at all, which can't be
right. So the names and numbers cited above may not be
100% accurate. I'm just telling you what I found.
Make your searches as precise as possible. If you take
the lazy approach and type in "Buffett," you'll get, among
other things, Harvey Enterprises, partially owned by singer
Jimmy Buffett, not Warren. There are lots of other Soroses
out there, and half the companies in the world seem to have
a Gates in either their management or their outside law and
accounting firms.
So get your target's complete name, down to the middle
initial. Then specify the forms most likely to yield good
information.
10-K Wizard is free and relatively straightforward. Edgar
Online is a little more complex, and can cost between $10
and $100 a month, depending on your needs. But it offers
free technical support, which you'll definitely use.
Don't assume that the stocks mentioned here are sure
things. Even the giants strike out once in a while. Buffett, for
instance, has stuck with his massive Coca-Cola
(KO:NYSE) position as it's gone from world-class growth
stock to high-profile dog. And Soros and Tiger are having
forgettable years.
Still, a lot of energy and brainpower go into their major
decisions. So being able to effortlessly tag along seems like
the ultimate Internet freebie.
John Rubino, a former equity and bond analyst, writes a
column on mutual funds for POV and is a frequent
contributor to Individual Investor, Your Money and
Consumers Digest. His first book, Main Street, Not Wall
Street, was published by William Morrow in 1998. At time of
publication, he had no position in any stocks mentioned.
While Rubino cannot provide investment advice or
recommendations, he invites your feedback at
rubinoja@yahoo.com.
Send letters to the editor to letters@thestreet.com.
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