Facing redemption pressure, it has been a while since
Bruce Berkowitz
bought his last new position. But in the quarter ended on March
31, he initiated a new position in insurance company Mercury
General (
MCY
). He also added to his positions in Sears (
SHLD
), Jeffries (
JEF
) and Wells Fargo Warrants. He reduced Berkshire Hathaway (
BRK.A
)(
BRK.B
), Citigroup (
C
) and Goodman Sachs (
GS
).
Of course
Bruce Berkowitz
still has more than 80% of his portfolio in financials. His
largest holding is AIG (
AIG
), which is 36% of all his stocks. Will AIG make or break
Bruce Berkowitz
? We will wait to see.
Bruce Berkowitz
initiated holdings in Mercury General Corp. His purchase prices
were between $42.88 and $45.63, with an estimated average price
of $41.32. The impact to his portfolio due to this purchase was
0.04%. His holdings were 70,900 shares as of March 31, 2012.
Mercury General Corp. is engaged primarily in writing all risk
classifications of automobile insurance in a number of states,
principally California. He owned this stock before in Fairholme
Focused Income Fund, but sold later. The stock now has a dividend
yield of 5.4%.
Mercury released its first quarter results recently. Its net
premiums written is almost flat from the same period last year,
but its combined ratio declined to 97.6% from 98.2% in 2011, an
important increase of 60 basis points.
Due to the improvement in the combined ratio, Mercury had net
income of $73.4 million in the first quarter, compared to $58.2
million for the same period a year ago. The company declared a
quarterly dividend of $0.61 per share.
Bruce Berkowitz continues to add to Sears, as the stock price
declined. He now owns 156 million shares of Sears. He also added
to Jefferies (
JEF
), which he has a lot of confidence in due to the investment of
Leucadia (
LUK
).
He reduced his positions in St. Joe. (
JOE
), and sold out Goldman Sachs (
GS
).
Here is the complete portfolio of Bruce Berkowitz. Also check out
the Undervalued Stocks, Top Growth Companies and High Yield
stocks of Bruce Berkowitz.About GuruFocus: GuruFocus.com tracks
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