American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (ASI) a New Pick For This Billionaire

A market-moving update, Prem Watsa’s’s Fairfax Financial Holdings reported a purchase of 1,236,214 shares of American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE:ASI) in a 13D filing with the SEC’s Edgar system. In total, the position is now valued at about $35.8 million, at the current price of the company’s stock. The holding represents 12.6% of American Safety Insurance Holdings and is a new position in the hedge fund’s equity portfolio.

Looking at the entire picture, 13Ds indicate the goals of activist hedge fund managers. These mega-investors, are high-flyers in the investment world, and look to tweak an existing company.

To put it simply, it’s very beneficial for average investors to pay attention to Prem Watsa’s recent play into American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE:ASI).

Though the media, analysts and the blogosphere at larger reports on a multitude of investing indicators, there exists one that flies under the radar so to speak: consensus hedge fund sentiment.

Empirical studies have found that retail investors who follow specific hedge fund activity can beat Mr. Market by as much as 18 percentage points per year. (See the details here).

Focusing in on American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE:ASI), we can see that aside from Farifax, another hedge fund was long American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE:ASI) at the end of last quarter. More precisely, Jim Roumell’s Roumell Asset Management in American Safety Insurance Holdings. Roumell Asset Management holds a $10.2 million position in American Safety Insurance, which contains 409,589 shares.

Furthermore, we must tell you some other stocks in Fairfax Financial Holdings’s 13F portfolio aside from American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE:ASI).

As follows they include Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), and are mentioned on Page 2:

The hedge fund disclosed a $484.1 million stake in Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), which contains about 5.9 million shares. Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) is represented in Fairfax’s equity portfolio by almost 9 million shares, valued at $128.5 million. In U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB), Prem Watsa’s hedge fund holds some 2.9 million shares, worth $98.6 million.

With this in mind, Insider Monkey will let you know of hedge funds investment plays around American Safety Insurance Holdings, Ltd. (NYSE:ASI).