Joe Nocera, Columnist

This Hedge-Fund Activist Might Be Better Off Passive

Mick McGuire is doing well. But not by turning around companies.

December 19, 2017 at 10:00 AM UTC

Joe Nocera is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is the host and writer of the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."

Not what it used to be.
Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg

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I’ll say this for Mick McGuire, Activist Investor™: The man knows how to make a buck. As 2017 winds down, his hedge fund, Marcato Capital Management LP, is up around 24 percent, five percentage points better than the S&P 500 index. To put it another way, the 41-year old Bill Ackman protege is doing what hedge-fund guys are always striving for, but so often fall to accomplish: He’s “creating alpha.”

Taking a look at his positions — as evidenced by his most recent federal filing — you see a mixed bag. His big winner was Barry Diller’s company, IAC Interactive Corp., whose stock nearly doubled this year. He had other, smaller winners too, such as AAR Corp., CF Industries, La Quinta Holdings Corp., Sotheby’s and Terex Corp.