Harbinger Rebalances by Whittling Down NYT Position

We've got a flurry of SEC filings from Philip Falcone's hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners. While the update below covers its U.S. equity positions, we just this morning updated its UK holdings for those interested. That aside, let's dive right into the U.S. equity filings:

Firstly, Harbinger has filed an amended 13D on Leap Wireless (LEAP) and is now showing a 5.7% ownership stake with 4,451,100 shares. The filing was made due to activity on September 16th, 2009. It shows them selling shares on the 29th and 30th of July, as well as the 16th and 17th of September. The transactions occurred in Harbinger's Master Fund and Special Situations Fund and here is a screenshot of its sales:

Click to enlarge:

Harbinger continues to sell shares of LEAP as we detailed the fund's previous sales back in August. Harbinger had previously owned over a 9% ownership stake, so it has nearly cut its ownership stake in half since then.

Secondly, Philip Falcone's hedge fund also sold shares of The New York Times (NYT). Due to activity on September 17th, Harbinger filed an amended 13D on NYT and now show a 16.38% ownership stake with 23,538,434 shares. It sold 5,000,000 shares at a price of $8.25 on the 17th of September according to an SEC Form 4 filing, having previously owned a 20% stake. A spokesman for Harbinger addressed the sale by saying,

The New York Times is still a core holding, and the sale was done to take advantage of the strength in the market, to adjust the portfolio accordingly.

Harbinger sold these shares at a loss as it initially acquired NYT shares between $15-20 per share almost two years ago when it invested over $500 million.

In the past, we've covered the fact that Harbinger were open to hearing suitors for its NYT stake. As always, we'll continue to track developments in this regard. In addition to Harbinger, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim has a hefty position in NYT. Taking a step back and looking at the macro picture, we've questioned whether newspapers are a dying industry. It's definitely a prudent question to ponder and the debate has been cataloged through various mediums. Shares of The New York Times traded way down to as low as $3.51 earlier this year.

Thirdly, in a 13G filed with the SEC, Harbinger is also showing a 5.5% ownership stake in Mercer (MERC). It holds 1,995,100 shares and the filing was made due to activity on September 9th, 2009. This is a new position for Harbinger as it did not hold it as of its latest 13F filing which discloses positions as of June 30th, 2009.

So Harbinger has added these shares over the course of the past 3 months. And with that, we wrap up this portfolio update on Philip Falcone's fund. Harbinger has been quite busy recently as we also detailed the fund's position in Spectrum Brands (SPC) late last week. We also covered Harbinger's 13D on SkyTerra for those interested as well.

Philip Falcone runs $6 billion Harbinger Capital Partners and while he has numerous equity positions, his background is in the distressed arena. When we saw Harbinger's portfolio, we noted that it had been out adding to natural resource plays amongst a slew of other activity. For more background on Harbinger and its portfolio holdings, check out our post on Harbinger here.

Taken from Google Finance:

Leap Wireless is "a wireless communications carrier that offers digital wireless service in the United States under the Cricket brand. Cricket service is offered by Cricket, a wholly owned subsidiary of Leap, and is also offered in Oregon by LCW Wireless Operations, LLC (LCW Operations), and in the upper Midwest by Denali Spectrum Operations, LLC (Denali Operations). Cricket owns an indirect 73.3% non-controlling interest in LCW Operations through a 73.3% non-controlling interest in LCW Wireless, LLC (LCW Wireless), and owns an indirect 82.5% non-controlling interest in Denali Operations through an 82.5% non-controlling interest in Denali Spectrum, LLC (Denali). At December 31, 2008, Cricket service was offered in 30 states and had approximately 3.8 million customers."

New York Times is "a diversified media company, including newspapers, Internet businesses, a radio station, investments in paper mills and other investments. The Company is organized in two segments: News Media Group and the About Group. Additionally, the Company owns equity interests in a Canadian newsprint company, a supercalendered paper manufacturing partnership in Maine, and Metro Boston LLC, which publishes a free daily newspaper in the greater Boston area. In February 2008, it acquired a 25% ownership interest in quadrantONE LLC, an online advertising network that sells bundled premium, targeted display advertising onto local newspaper and other Websites."

Mercer "operates in the pulp business and is a producer of market northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) pulp. The Company’s operations are located in Eastern Germany and Western Canada. It operates three NBSK pulp mills with a consolidated annual production capacity of approximately 1.5 million million air-dried metric tons (ADMTs): Rosenthal mill, Stendal mill and Celgar mill."