Of the top 1,100 funds tracked by Whalewisdom.com, 12.9% grabbed shares in Alibaba AFP/Getty ImagesYou can call Jack Ma ‘Mr. Popular,’ among the hedge fund crowd. Everybody loves Alibaba. Hedge fund masters of the universe, including Dan Loeb, John Paulson and George Soros, snapped up newly-debuted U.S. shares of Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba BABA, -1.80% in the third quarter. Alibaba was the most popular new stake reported by big investors in regulatory filings that were due at the end of last week, according to an analysis by tracking firm Whalewisdom.com. Of the top 1,100 funds tracked by Whalewisdom.com, 12.9% grabbed shares in Alibaba (see chart below), holding a total of more than 227.2 million shares as of Sept. 30. Large investors are required to report long positions held at the end of each quarter in a 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that’s due 45 days after the quarter has ended. Loeb’s Third Point LLC reported a holding of 7.2 million shares of Alibaba, equal to 7.3% of the fund’s portfolio. Soros Fund Management reported holding 4.4 million shares, while Paulson & Co. reported holding around 1.9 million shares. However, the biggest single holding, at nearly 54.7 million shares, belonged to investment firm Silver Lake Group, according to the filings. The firm held a 2.5% stake in Alibaba ahead of the initial public offering, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Silver Lake’s stake was valued at $4.9 billion as of Sept. 30 and would be worth more than $6.2 billion based on Monday’s share price near $114.28. Silver Lake reaped around $278.8 million in proceeds by selling a chunk of its stake in the IPO. The tables below tell the story of the waxing and waning popularity of shares held by big hedge fund honchos: As is often the case, heavily traded Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.69% finds itself among the most added and the most reduced stocks. Who did funds dump outright? The likes of Forest Laboratories and Questcor Pharmaceuticals topped the list by virtue of the fact that they no longer exist after the completion of acquisitions in the third quarter. Among those still extant, Whalewisdom.com found that 4.7% of filers eliminated holdings of drug store chain Walgreen Co. WAG, -0.40% , dumping a cumulative total of more than 19.3 million shares over the course of the quarter. Walgreen in August completed a $15.3 billion acquisition of U.K. chain Alliance Boots but didn’t use the deal to move its tax address overseas, triggering a sharp selloff. Walgreen shares dropped 20% in the third quarter but have rebounded nearly 12% since Sept. 30 and are up around 15.5% year-to-date. William Watts