Third Point Investors (TPOU)

Third Point Investors (LON:TPOU) has had a stand-out year so far in performance terms, with the manager’s differentiated approach to multi-asset investment delivering very strong returns. As we discuss in Performance, the standout performers this year in absolute terms have been the fund’s private investments, which have subsequently IPO’d and continued to deliver very strong returns as public equities.

The manager has specialist teams in credit, equity, merger/activist and venture strategies, not to mention a specialist short-selling team. Daniel Loeb stepped back into the sole-CIO role at Third Point in mid-2020, and he is responsible for overall capital allocation across the teams, which varies depending on Daniel’s reading of market conditions. Public equity has consistently been the biggest exposure for the fund, but private investments – far from being a trend that Third Point has leapt on recently – has had a consistent presence in the portfolio.

Over the last five years, the average discount to NAV has been 19.3%, but so far in 2021 has averaged 14.8% (Source: Morningstar). Strong performance, as well as a range of initiatives from the board, have seen the discount progressively narrow over the past 18 months. At the time of writing the discount is 13%, and the board has c. $50m of the buyback programme remaining. Some investors view the board’s discount narrowing activities as inadequate, but following the conclusion of a vote recently which saw a representative of the manager remain on TPOU’s board, the board have stated that they hope that they can now focus their efforts “on promoting the attractive value-proposition of the Company to current and potential shareholders”.