Does Pirate Capital Like it HOT?

In analyzing Pirate Capital's recent 13F for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006 we found an interesting new holding for the shaken-up activist hedge fund. It appears, Pirate initiated a new 595,600 share stake in Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: HOT).

The stake is small at just 0.281%, but with Tom Hudson's recent commitment to stream-line the fund we find it interesting that he is putting on a new trade. As we have been reporting for some time, Pirate has mainly been liquidating all but a few positions and Bloomberg recently reported that the fund's assets fell from $1.8 billion in August 2006 to $1.1 billion. The hedge fund disclosed 35 positions for the quarter ended June 30, 2006, that is now down to 19 positions.