Murray Stahl Slashes Portfolio but Remains Bullish on These Five Stocks

#4. Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCK)

– Number of shares held by Horizon as of March 31: 5.35 Million Series C Shares

– Value of Horizon’s holding as of March 31: $203.83 Million

The New York-based investment boutique also reduced its exposure to Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCK) by 577,774 shares during the first three months of 2016, ending the first quarter with 5.35 million shares worth $203.83 million. Earlier this week, Liberty Media completed a previously-announced transaction to split its common stock into three new tracking stocks: the Liberty Braves common stock, the Liberty Media common stock, and the Liberty Sirius XM common stock. Under the so-called recapitalization transaction, each share of Liberty’s common stock was reclassified and exchanged for one share of Liberty SiriusXM common stock, 0.1 of a share of Liberty Braves common stock, and 0.25 of a share of Liberty Media common stock. This move may enable analysts and investors to value more accurately each business that comprised the original Liberty Media. The Liberty SiriusXM tracking stock reflects the economic performance of SIRIUS XM, whose business operations involve the transmission of music, sports, entertainment, comedy, and other channels on a subscription fee basis through two proprietary satellite ratio systems. The Liberty Braves tracking stock relates to Braves Holdings, which is the indirect owner and operator of the Major League Baseball club the Atlanta Brave. Meanwhile, the Liberty Media tracking stock reflects the performance of all businesses other than those attributed to the Liberty Braves tracking stock and Liberty SiriusXM tracking stock. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owned 15.39 million Series C shares of Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCK) at the end of 2015.

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#3. Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP)

– Number of shares held by Horizon as of March 31: 3.51 Million

– Value of Horizon’s holding as of March 31: $221.13 Million

Mr. Stahl’s investment firm owns nearly 3.51 million shares of Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP) as of the end of the March quarter, 91,800 shares less than at the end of December. The 3.51 million-share stake was valued at $221.13 million on March 31. Icahn Enterprises is a diversified holding company that owns subsidiaries engages in various operating businesses such as automotive, energy, railcar, and others, as well as manages a multi-billion-dollar investment portfolio. Mr. Stahl discussed his firm’s investment in Icahn Enterprises in a recent quarterly letter to investors, saying that “Icahn Enterprises also has a unique and very valuable feature. It holds short/swap positions that would benefit from three separate scenarios that could be disastrous for (or reflect a disastrous development in) the financial markets: expanding credit spreads (that is, trouble in the high-yield market), a lower stock market, and/or higher interest rates.” Moreover, the fund’s fourth-quarter investor letter said that “The shares trade at 1.0x IEP’s calculation of NAV. In that sense, they trade at liquidation value, inclusive of investments made at what were determined by an activist deep value investor to be undervalued prices, many of which have declined sharply from there. The return from this portfolio in recovery mode would obviously be quite large.” Shares of Icahn Enterprises LP have gained 2% year-to-date, but are down 30% in the past 12 months. Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies acquired a new stake of 35,497 shares in Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP) during the final quarter of 2015.

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