Bruce Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital Initiated A Position In $OSH

Bruce Berkowitz’s Fairholme Capital Management reported yesterday that the firm now has 718 thousand shares of Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corp (OSH), giving a 14.9% passive stake ownership. This is a brand new position in Fairholme’s portfolio. OSH began to trade on Nasdaq on January 3, 2012 after the company’s spin-off from Sears Holdings Corp on December 30, 2011. The stock is now trading at $14.6, down from $25 on January 3.

Bruce Berkowitz launched Fairholme in 1999. It earned him the title of “Stock Manager of the Decade” from Morningstar and is now a $19 Billion mutual fund. Berkowitz’s Fairholme Fund managed to return 1.02% per month since September 2000. This compounds to an average annual return of 12.9% for the past 10 years. In 2010, Fairholme Fund returned 25.5%, beating the SPY by more than 10 percentage points. In fact, Berkowitz managed to beat the market every year except in 2003.

According to Yahoo! Finance, Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corp “through its subsidiaries, owns and operates home improvement retail stores in California. The company offers a range of home improvement and specialty products, including garden, nursery, hardware, industrial, electrical, housewares, plumbing, tools, paint, seasonal, outdoor power products, and appliances. As of January 05, 2012, it operated 87 full-service hardware stores in California. The company was founded in 1931 and is based in San Jose, California. As of December 31, 2011, Orchard Supply Hardware Stores Corp operates independently of Sears Holdings Corp.”