Kahn Brothers’ Main Q2 Moves Include Buying More BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) Shares

Moving on, Kahn Brothers owned over 3.30 million shares of BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) worth $27.02 million at the end of June, which represented a 39% increase over the quarter. Under the leadership of CEO John Chen, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has been in the process of transforming itself for almost two years now. However, if the stock price represents any indication, that turnaround has not reflected, with the stock being down almost 30% year-to-date and lost 8.4% in the second-quarter alone. On July 28, shares of the company jumped significantly on back of Morgan Stanley upgrading the stock to ‘Equal-weight’ (equivalent of a ‘Hold’) from ‘Underweight’. The company attempted to capture back some of its market share in the smartphone market by launching a number of different devices, including the flagship Passport, during the last couple of months, but the lukewarm response those devices generated has led many analysts and experts to argue that BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) should spin off or close its phone making unit completely and rather focus on being an enterprise software company. Renowned value investor Prem Watsa‘s Fairfax Financial Holdings held the largest stake in the company among the funds we track, which contained almost 46.7 million shares at the end of March.

Finally, after reducing its stake in Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI) by 5% during the first quarter, Kahn Brothers further cut its stake by 40% during the second-quarter, disclosing a $17.43 million stake, which contains nearly 1.12 million shares. Similar to MBIA Inc. (NYSE:MBI), Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI) is also engaged in the insurance business. However, for the most part the company primarily focuses on property and general insurance. On July 23, the company reported better than expected financial results for the second-quarter, which included EPS of $0.32 on revenue of $1.41 billion, significantly above analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.25 and $1.33 billion respectively. Following Kahn Brothers, Chuck Royce‘s Royce & Associates was the second-largest shareholder of Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE:ORI) in our database at the end of March.

Disclosure: None