market folly

Fund manager of the decade Bruce Berkowitz and his Fairholme Fund recently increased their stake in American International Group (AIG). We had previously revealed his new AIG stake and then posted up when SEC filings confirmed his position size. Fairholme recently filed an amended 13G with the SEC disclosing that they now have an 18.9% ownership stake in AIG representing 25,467,800 shares due to activity on April 30th, 2010. This is quite a sizable increase as Berkowitz previously had an 11.1% stake in the company. This means that over the past month and a half, Fairholme has added 10,429,700 more shares, a 69.4% increase in their position size.

Additionally, we see that Berkowitz has filed another regulatory disclosure with the SEC regarding his position in Americredit (ACF). In the filing (which was also made due to activity on April 30th), we see that Fairholme has reduced its ownership stake in ACF to 21.0%, down from 26.4%. We'll continue to track his latest investment activity.

It's clear that Berkowitz's portfolio theme revolves around betting on financials & turnarounds. Recent portfolio activity out of Fairholme Fund includes a brand new stake in Goldman Sachs (GS) that was revealed by Berkowitz last week as mentioned in a summary of the Value Investing Congress.

Taken from Google Finance, AIG is "a holding company, which through its subsidiaries, is engaged primarily in a range of insurance and insurance-related activities in the United States and abroad. AIG's four reportable segments include: General Insurance, Domestic Life Insurance & Retirement Services, Foreign Life Insurance & Retirement Services, and Financial Services."

Americredit is "an auto finance company operating in the automobile finance business. The Company purchases auto finance contracts for new and used vehicles purchased by consumers from franchised and select independent automobile dealerships in its dealership network."

You can view all of our past coverage of Berkowitz's Fairholme by scrolling through our posts via that link.