Edward Lampert, ESL Investments Sell Some Shares of AutoNation Again

Edward Lampert‘s ESL Investments disclosed recently selling a part of its AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) shares. According to a new form 4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ESL disposed almost 121,100 shares of the company in 15 transactions, the price varying between $49.05 and $49.29 per share. Following the sale, ESL still holds around 14.9 million shares directly, while the amount of shares owned indirectly amounts to 16.9 million shares.

Mr. Lampert and ESL have been active into AutoNation for some time now. The fund firstly increased its stake in the company to 35.5 million shares, from 20.2 disclosed in the latest 13F, following which, ESL reported cutting its stake to around 32 million shares. A couple of days ago, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed ESL selling around 10,000 shares of the company.

The largest automotive in the U.S., AutoNation, posted a total of over 22,900 new vehicles sold in October, which represents a 9% increase over the year, and is the highest number of units sold by the company in October since 2007. The company also posted an all-time record of its EPS from continuing operations, which grew by 14% on the year to $0.75 in the third quarter of the year. The revenue of the company also went up by 14% on the year, and totaled $4.5 billion.

The stock of AutoNation gained almost 24% since the beginning of the year, and sports a forward P/E of 14.7x. With a market cap of nearly $6.0 billion, the company is the second largest in the industry of Auto Dealerships, being outpaced just by CarMax, Inc (NYSE:KMX).

In the latest round of 13F filings, Oz Management, run by Daniel S. Och, reported boosting its holding in AutoNation by some 585,000 shares, to a total of 3.3 million shares, worth $171.2 million. On the other hand, Horizon Asset Management, managed by Murray Stahl, and James Crichton and Adam Weiss’ Scout Capital Management reduced their stakes and reported holding 6.1 million shares, and 2.2 million shares, with values of $317.1 million, and $114.8 million respectively. Ricky Sandler’s Eminence Capital initiated a position in the company during the third quarter, disclosing 1.4 million shares, worth $72.5 million in its latest 13F.

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