Philippe Laffont’s Coatue established his position at Paramount Global during a turbulent time for the storied media company. The technology-focused investor increased its stake in the traditional entertainment giant by more than 3 million shares in the second quarter, according to regulatory filings. This equates to holdings worth more than $38 million. Lafont is one of the managers of the “Tiger Cub” fund and worked under the late Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. His move to Paramount comes as Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media looms and the company’s stock price is going through a rough patch. Paramount agreed to the deal last month, but it included a 45-day window during which a committee of the board of directors could find another buyer. The company said last week it would cut 15% of its U.S. jobs in preparation for the merger. PARA YTD mountain Paramount shares are down more than 30% year to date and 2024 so far, which means Laffont is a buy during a period of weakness in the stock price. Shares fell more than 11% in the second quarter alone. These declines can be attributed to declining cable subscriber numbers and weak TV advertising. Paramount is one of several new holdings the MIT alum is opening this season. The list includes green energy stocks First Solar and SolarEdge, as well as UnitedHealth Group and Nikola. He has also significantly increased his holdings of Qualcomm, Aberdeen and Dell, all of which are among his top 10 holdings in technology stocks. Laffont, on the other hand, has also completed holdings in companies including Baidu, Block, Crocs, DoorDash, DraftKings, ServiceNow, and General Motors. He also made significant cuts to Salesforce, Alphabet, Tesla and Netflix. Lafont made some milder changes to large-cap technology stocks, which represent the largest position in the portfolio. He trimmed his stake in Meta Platforms by about 3%, although it remains his largest holding at more than $2 billion. At the same time, he increased his holdings in Amazon and TSMC by approximately 7% and 10% respectively. These are his second- and third-largest holdings this season.
