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[基础分析] Berkowitz’s Fairholme Increases Bet on AIG Recovery (Update1)

By Hugh Son

May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Fairholme Capital Management, the investment firm run by Bruce Berkowitz, raised its bet on the recovery of bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc. by increasing holdings to 25.5 million shares.

The stake, disclosed today in a regulatory filing, compares with the 15 million AIG shares Fairholme reported as of March 31. Berkowitz, named the U.S. domestic stock fund manager of the decade in January by Chicago-based Morningstar Inc., has said he began buying AIG stock in the second half of 2009.

His firm’s stake, second in size only to the U.S. government’s, was valued at about $1 billion based on today’s closing price of $40.98 on the New York Stock Exchange. AIG has gained about 37 percent this year as Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche struck deals to sell two divisions for about $51 billion to help repay its bailout and posted a $1.45 billion first-quarter profit.

“It is still a good company with a good global brand,” Berkowitz said in a March 15 interview. Fairholme bought stock of the New York-based insurer, once the world’s largest, after he saw “cash flows of AIG turn positive” last year, he said. Berkowitz didn’t immediately return a call for comment today.

AIG’s first-quarter profit compares with a net loss of $4.35 billion a year earlier as investment income climbed and writedowns narrowed, the company said last week. AIG needed a 2008 bailout that swelled to $182.3 billion after bad bets on subprime mortgages.
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