market folly

John Paulson's hedge fund firm Paulson & Co recently added to their holdings in food producer Premier Foods (LON: PFD). The London Stock Exchange disclosed that Paulson & Co have increased their stake to 11.8% of outstanding shares, up from their previous 8.9% stake. Originally, Paulson started buying into Premier Foods around the March 2009 bottom and shares of PFD have returned 22.5% over the past 52 weeks. In terms of other recent holdings, we also covered Paulson's SuperMedia (SPMD) position.

Paulson & Co's Advantage fund was up 13.75% for 2009, their Advantage Plus fund was up 21%, their Credit Opportunities fund was up 34%, and their Recovery fund was up 24.2% as noted in our post on 2009 hedge fund performance numbers. Then we also took an in-depth look at Paulson's new gold fund as well. For more background on Paulson and his big trade against subprime that made him billions, we highly recommend Gregory Zuckerman's book, The Greatest Trade Ever.

Taken from Google Finance, Premier Foods Plc is "a food producer, producing a range of category branded and retailer-branded food products. As of December 31, 2008, the Company operated in three divisions: Grocery, Hovis and Chilled & Ireland. The Grocery segment includes grocery products. The Hovis segment includes wrapped bread, morning goods and bulk and bagged flour. The Chilled & Ireland segment chilled and frozen meat-free products, operations in the Republic of Ireland, and its retailer branded chilled ready meal and cake businesses. In March 2, 2009, the Company completes its sales of Martine Specialites SAS and Le Pain Croustillant." For more about UK holdings, head to our primer on tracking a hedge fund's UK positions.