John Paulson Was Very Active In Q4

The SEC requires that all "institutional investment managers that use the United States mail in the course of their business and that exercise investment discretion over $100 million or more in Section 13(f) securities" must file a Form 13f.

This form will let us know (on a delayed basis) which Section 13(f) securities any prominent investment managers (such as a hedge fund) are holding at the end of each quarter.

Section 13(f) securities include the likes of Microsoft, Morgan Stanley and Office Depot. The full 453 page list of Section 13(f) securities can be found on the SEC web site in *.pdf format.

John Paulson, who has been phenomenally successful over the past couple of years, files a 13F-HR for his "Paulson & Co LLC" hedge fund firm quarterly. The filing for Q4 2009 was just made public yesterday.

*note* the 13F-HR filing is just a piece of Paulson's total positions. It doesn't include short positions, positions in securities that aren't on the Section 13(f) list, etc.

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Anyways, let's get to Paulson's Q4 13F-HR filing.

Paulson was pretty busy in Q4, opening a number of new positions and adding to a bunch more. Here are the new positions that he opened (or that came via merger/acquisition of another security, conversion from debt, etc) during Q4 2009:

NAME --> No. of Shares --> Value as of 12/31/09 --> Unit Type

Apollo Group Inc. --> 829,000 --> $50,220,000 --> CL A

Bank of America Corporati --> 13,760,000 --> $205,299,000 --> UNIT

Burlington Northern Santa --> 1,500,000 --> $147,930,000 --> COMMON

Chattem Inc. --> 500,000 --> $46,650,000 --> COMMON

CIT Group --> 4,391,155 --> $121,239,000 --> COM NEW

Comcast Corp. --> 44,000,000 --> $741,840,000 --> COM NEW CL A

Capital One Financial Cor --> 3,992,520 --> $52,581,000 --> *W EXP 11/14/20

3 Com Corp. --> 10,000,000 --> $75,000,000 --> COMMON

Directv --> 5,104,281 --> $170,228,000 --> COM CL A

Encore Acquisition Co. --> 1,475,000 --> $70,830,000 --> COMMON

Hyatt Hotels Corp --> 300,000 --> $8,943,000 --> COM CL A

JPMorgan Chase & Co. --> 18,727,997 --> $249,644,000 --> W EXP 10/28/201

Kraft Food Inc. --> 5,000,000 --> $135,900,000 --> CL A

Lear Corporation --> 1,381,785 --> $93,464,000 --> COM NEW

Liberty Media Corp --> 3,300,000 --> $152,295,000 --> INT COM SER A

Macerich Co --> 1,267,407 --> $45,563,000 --> COMMON

Mead Johnson Nutrition Co --> 4,000,000 --> $174,800,000 --> COM CL A

New York Community Trust --> 1,350,000 --> $19,589,000 --> COMMON

Northern Trust Corp. --> 1,000,000 --> $52,400,000 --> COMMON

Pfizer Inc. --> 15,600,000 --> $283,764,000 --> COMMON

IMS Health Inc. --> 18,000,000 --> $379,080,000 --> COMMON

Sprint Nextel Corp. --> 10,000,000 --> $36,600,000 --> COM SER 1

State Street Corp --> 2,000,000 --> $87,080,000 --> COMMON

Vail Resorts Inc. --> 2,239,924 --> $84,669,000 --> COMMON

Valley National Bancorp --> 3,000,000 --> $42,390,000 --> COMMON

Wells Fargo & Co. --> 17,500,000 --> $472,325,000 --> COM NEW

XTO Energy Inc. --> 10,000,000 --> $465,300,000 --> COMMON

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Now, here are the positions that Paulson no longer owns (either because he sold them or because they were purchased)

CF Industries Holdings --> 500,000 --> $43,115,000 --> COMMON

Cemex SAB DE CV --> 7,000,000 --> $90,440,000 --> SPON ADR NEW

Liberty Media Corp --> 44,750,000 --> $1,392,173,000 --> ENT COM SER A

Old National Bancorp Ind --> 900,000 --> $10,080,000 --> COMMON

Schering Plough Corp. --> 57,621,600 --> $1,627,810,000 --> COMMON

Ultrashort Financial --> 2,000,000 --> $50,100,000 --> COMMON

Varian Inc --> 2,000,000 --> $102,120,000 --> COMMON

Wyeth --> 51,694,300 --> $2,511,309,000 --> COMMON

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Here are the existing positions that Paulson either added to or pared down:

+2,217,500 shares of Ashford Hospitality Trust
-8,760,000 shares of Bank of America Corp
+206,700,000 shares of Citigroup Inc
+20,855,000 shares of Conseco Inc
+2,137,500 shares of Felcor Lodging Trust Inc
+106,463 shares of First Horizon National
+550,000 shares of Gold Fields Ltd
+5,000,000 shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co
+719,200 shares of Kinross Gold Corp
+14,050,000 shares of Marshall & Ilsley Corp
+165,000 shares of Pepsiamericas Inc
+400,000 shares of Pepsi Bottling Group Inc
-15,656,300 shares of Regions Financial Corp
+40,000 shares of Starwood Hotels & Resorts
+1,024,000 shares of Sunstone Hotel Invs Inc
+28,880,700 shares of Suntrust Bank Inc

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Paulson continued to add to his Citigroup position in Q4, and now owns a sizable 500,000,000+ share stake in the company.

Paulson & Co LLC has a total of 57 different securities listed on their Form 13F for Q4, up substantially from 39 in the quarter before.

The sum total of the value of the securities on this list was a little under $20 billion as of December 31st, 2009. (exact number $19,795,476,000). This number was $20,463,490,000 at the end of Q3.

Note: All calculations should be verified by looking at the actual 13F-HR filing

Source: Paulson & Co INC Q4 13F-HR Filing


Filed under: Hedge Fund News