Hot Hedge Fund Activity, Stock Holdings, January 26th

January 26, 2011

Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners started a brand new position in their portfolio during the most recent third quarter. They bought more than 500,000 shares of Smurfit-Stone Container (NYSE:SSCC), valued at less than $10 Million at the end of September. Today, Smurfit-Stone announced that it will be acquired by Rock Tenn Co (NYSE:RKT) for $35 a share. This means Jana Partners made more than 80% from its SSCC investment in less than 4 months.

The deal also boosted the paper sector. International Paper increased more than 3%, Temple Inland Inc (NYSE:TIN) gained 5.3%, KapStone Paper & Packaging Corp (NYSE:KS) was up 4.6%, and Boise Inc. (NYSE:BZ) increased 3.4%. Surprisingly, Rock Tenn also gained 3.7% after the announcement.

Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper was another hedge fund manager who profited handsomely from this deal. David Tepper had more than 200,000 shares of Smurfit-Stone at the end of September. He also had 570,000 shares of Temple Inland (NYSE:TIN) and 1.9 million shares of International Paper (NYSE:IP). David Tepper is a sector investor. At the end of September he had sizable positions in healthcare and semiconductors as well.

This is a guest post written by Insider Monkey.

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