HMA: just what hedgie ordered
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Hedgie Larry Robbins, who made a killing on hospital stocks last year, appears ready to double his stake in Naples, Fla., hospital operator Health Management Associates.
The founder of $4.5 billion Glenview Capital — who posted double-digit gains last year following big bets in hospital stocks — told HMA yesterday to remove its poison pill or increase the trigger to 25 percent from 15 percent.
Robbins owns 14.6 percent of HMA’s stock, which closed yesterday up 11.3 percent, to $15.51, on Robbins’ poison-pill request. The pill limits Robbins from acquiring more of the stock.
Additionally, Glenview said it is considering removing the HMA board of directors.
Last year, Glenview’s $3.6 billion flagship fund posted gains of around 30 percent.
Robbins, at a New York investment conference in 2012, said he thought hospital stocks would soar with President Obama’s health-care reform.
Robbins was in the news in 2007 for building an indoor ice rink on his 3-acre suburban home, which neighbors called “Madison Square Garden Up on the Hill.”