With reporting by Avi Salzman and Brendan Conway
Every three months, many investors are forced to release a list of their stock holdings as of the end of the most recent quarter. The 13f filings are a little dated (45 days old) and they don’t include options and some other kinds of holdings, but they nonetheless offer a glimpse into the portfolios of some of the most closely followed investors in the world. The filings for the end of the fourth quarter began trickling out late on Tuesday, and they reveal quite� a few compelling bits of information: that John Paulson liquidated his Bank of America (BAC) holdings just before the stock went on a tremendous run, that Bill Ackman suddenly soured on Lowe’s (LOW),� and that George Soros and David Einhorn took a liking to some big tech stocks. We’ve broken down the holdings of some top investors below:
Warren Buffett
AP
Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) doesn�t change its stock portfolio very much each quarter, but investors tend to watch the company�s incremental moves closely. Warren Buffett has put his two newest deputies and likely successors, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, in charge of parts of the portfolio, but Buffett is still the head honcho.
In the fourth quarter, Berkshire bought Davita (DVA), which runs dialysis centers, and Liberty Media (LMCA), a communications and entertainment company. The company ended the quarter with 2.7 million shares of Davita and 1.7 million shares of Liberty Media.
Berkshire also trimmed and added to various positions in its legendary portfolio.
It raised its stake in Wells Fargo (WFC) to 384 million shares, up from 361 million at the end of the third quarter. It raised its stake in DirecTV (DTV) to 20 million shares from 4.2 million shares. Its CVS Caremark (CVS) stake was 7.1 million, up from 5.7 million. And Berkshire�s Visa (V) position rose to 2.9 million shares, up from 2.3 million.
Berkshire cut its Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) stake to 29 million shares from 37 million.
Bill Ackman
Activist investor and Pershing Square Capital Management chief Bill Ackman disposed of a sizable but brief-lived stake in hardware retailer Lowe�s Cos. (LOW) late last year, a Tuesday afternoon filing showed.
A previously reported stake of 21.2 million Lowe�s shares was nowhere to be seen in a 13-F SEC filing that showed Ackman�s holdings as of Dec. 31. �A call to Pershing Square requesting comment was not immediately returned.
It was a short-lived investment. Pershing only disclosed the position in its third-quarter filing in November, which showed that he held about 1.7% of the company as of late September. Lowe�s stock is up 7.1% for the year and it was up about 0.8% around midday on Wednesday.
Tuesday�s filings also showed a big stake in whiskey maker Beam Inc. (BEAM) after the company separated last year from the former Fortune Brands.�The 20.8 million Beam shares under Pershing�s control are worth more than $1.1 billion as of Tuesday�s closing price � or about one-eighth of the company�s entire market capitalization. The Deerfield, Ill.-based company�s stock edged up 0.7% to $54.18 Tuesday and gained fractionally in after-hours trading.
That�s in addition to his previously disclosed position in Fortune Brands Home & Security (FBHS), the other wing of the old Fortune Brands.
Ackman has an extensive presence in the consumer-goods industry. Other positions he�s previously disclosed include Family Dollar Stores (FDO), Kraft Foods (KFT) and J.C. Penney (JCP). Photo via Bloomberg News.
David Einhorn
Bloomberg News
Greenlight Capital�s David Einhorn apparently got bullish on tech companies toward the end of 2011, according to a filing released after the market closed Tuesday.
Greenlight added a 3-milion-share position in Yahoo (YHOO) and a 2.9-million share position in Research in Motion Limited (RIMM). He also bought 14 million shares of Dell (DELL). His position in Microsoft (MSFT) was basically unchanged, but he added to his Apple (AAPL) position, ending the quarter with about 1.5 million shares, up from 1.3 million.
John Paulson
BloombergHedge-fund manager John Paulson appears to have dumped his Bank of America (BAC) and Citigroup (C) stock holdings some time last quarter, after an especially tough 2011. It means he disposed of his BofA common shares before they staged a 45% rise this year.
The head of Paulson & Co. suffered last year as sagging bank stocks tarnished what had become a reputation as one of Wall Street�s shrewdest investors. But he held onto sizable positions in the financial sector into the fourth quarter, a November filing showed.
The�latest SEC filing gave no sign of what used to be a 64.3 million-share BofA stake and another 25.1 million shares in Citi.
It�s not exactly clear when the stakes were disposed of. But in the case of BofA, it doesn�t much matter. The stock didn�t start posting substantial gains until 2012 was underway.
The fund manager did hold onto a batch of warrants in Bank of America, according to the filing.
It�s been a big day for Paulson news. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on the hedge-fund manager�s effort to break up the 200-year-old Hartford Financial (HIG).
David Tepper
Bloomberg News
Appaloosa Management’s David Tepper appears to have reduced his equity portfolio considerably in the fourth quarter, according to a filing released after the close of trading on Tuesday. The value of Tepper�s stock holdings fell to $765 million from $1.5 billion at the end of the third quarter.
Over two quarters, the drop is even more pronounced; Tepper reported stakes worth $4.2 billion at the end of the second quarter. (Of course, options and other assets don�t show up in quarterly filing reports, so it�s unclear how much Tepper actually took off the table.)
Tepper�s entire 2.5 million-share stake in Citigroup (C), which he reported at the end of the third quarter, is gone in the new filing, as is his 4.3-million-share stake in AMR Group (AMR), his 2.9 million share stake in Delta (DAL) and his 9.3-million-share stake in US Airways (LCC). Tepper opened a new 1.2-million-share position in Oracle (ORCL).
George Soros
Associated PressBillionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros entered 2012 with a leaner, more concentrated stock portfolio that sported bigger stakes in Google (GOOG), Delta Air Lines (DAL) and Wells Fargo (WFC) a filing late Tuesday shows.
The head of Soros Fund Management LLC showed 145 positions in stocks and other securities in its most recent quarterly SEC filing, a drop of about two-thirds from the 473 positions a quarter earlier, Dow Jones Newswires reported late Tuesday. The figures show what Soros was holding as of Dec. 31.
Soros� stake of 259,900 Google shares, up from 1,126 shares last time around, is worth about $158 million. That�s now one of the biggest positions in his portfolio.
Soros also showed 1.8 million Delta shares, up from about 28,000 at the end of the third quarter, and a tenfold increase in Wells Fargo, to 1.2 million shares.
Meanwhile, Amazon (AMZN) appeared to fall out of Soros� favor. A stake of 206,000 shares disclosed in the third quarter didn�t appear in the latest filing.
It�s also worth noting the sizable change in the value of reportable securities. Soros showed $4.6 billion in stocks and other assets for the quarter, down from�$5.8 billion as of Sept. 30 and likely reflecting a shift from stocks into other assets for which the SEC doesn�t require a disclosure.
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