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Oracle of Boston’ Seth Klarman adds to BP position
Hedge fund manager Seth Klarman, of the The Baupost Group, has added to his already significant stake in BP PLC.
BP BP +0.16% was Baupost’s largest holding at the end of the first quarter, according to regulatory filings and FactSet Research.
Klarman’s fund added more than 6 million shares in the January-to-March quarter. It held more than 17 million shares, worth about $730 million, at the end of the period.
Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss LLC, based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, added the most BP shares last quarter, buying nearly 10 million, but BP is not among the fund’s top 20 holdings.
Besides BP, Baupost added to positions at AIG AIG +0.16%, Rovi Corp. ROVI +0.16%, Idenix Pharmaceuticals IDIX , and Guyana Goldfields CA:GUY +2.21% in the first quarter, according to regulatory filings.
Baupost’s biggest sector holdings — nearly 20% — are in health technology, and 17% in energy and minerals. The fund added BP to its holdings in 2011 and has tweaked its stake here and there.
An article in The Economist magazine last year called Klarman “the oracle of Boston,”a manager with “a low profile and big following.” His fund has long been closed to new investors.
Klarman’s book, “Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor,” published in 1991, is out of print and sells for more than $2,000 on Amazon, new. Used copies will set you back at least $1,000.
Rumor has it that electronic copies circulate on trading floors, and that the book is one of the most stolen from libraries.
Shares of BP have risen 15% in the past 12 months and 3.2% year-to-date. That compares with 9.8% so far this year for the energy companies on the S&P 500 Index.
BP is still wrestling with fallout from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP was operator on the well. The explosion killed 11 workers and triggered the worst oil offshore spill in the U.S.
The second phase of a civil trial involving BP, Transocean Ltd RIG , which owned the rig, and Halliburton Co. HAL +0.27%, which did the well’s cement work, is scheduled for September.