Thomas Gayner and Markel Asset Management submitted their first quarter 13F with few surprises on Thursday. The fund added to 27 positions of the 105 equities they are now holding while taking positions in six new stocks. The top four positions in the $3.26 billion portfolio remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive quarter though there was a change in the fifth spot. The nearly 5 million shares Markel holds in CarMax, Inc (NYSE:KMX) represents 7.13% of the fund’s portfolio while shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) Class A and Class B amounting to an additional 6.20% and 5.8% respectively. The 1.2 million shares in Diageo plc (ADR) (NYSE:DEO) (LON:DGE) represent a small reduction for the quarter but still account for 4.6% of the portfolio’s worth. The company also reduced its positions in both Walgreen Company (NYSE:WAG) and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (NYSE:BAM). Walgreen Co. supplanted Brookfield for the fifth spot in Markel’s holdings representing 4.33% of the portfolio.
Markel’s additions and new purchases
Markel upped its position in Msci Inc (NYSE:MSCI). by 560.00% by purchasing 28,000 shares of the company. As far as portfolio changes go, the addition of 390,000 shares of Unilever plc (ADR) (NYSE:UL) (LON:ULVR) represents an addition of 179.72% to its stake and marks a 0.51% change to the portfolio. Markel also added at least 100% to its positions in The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG), Universal Technical Institute, Inc. (NYSE:UTI) and McGraw Hill Financial Inc (NYSE:MHFI). It also added sizable amounts (over 25%) to WellPoint Inc (NYSE:WLP), National-Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV), Liberty Media Corp (NASDAQ:LMCA) (NASDAQ:LMCB), Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), FactSet Research Systems Inc. (NYSE:FDS), Schlumberger Limited. (NYSE:SLB), Rollins, Inc. (NYSE:ROL), and Copart, Inc. (NASDAQ:CPRT).
Markel’s new purchases included 96,000 shares of CVS Caremark Corporation (NYSE:CVS), 61,000 shares of Travelers Companies Inc (NYSE:TRV), and smaller purchases of The Chubb Corporation (NYSE:CB), Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MMC), Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO), and Culp, Inc. (NYSE:CFI).
Markel’s exits and reductions
Of the ten positions that Markel closed this quarter none represented over 0.31% of the total portfolio. The fund closed positions in Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE:EPD), SYSCO Corporation (NYSE:SYY), Arch Coal Inc (NYSE:ACI), Apollo Education Group Inc (NASDAQ:APOL), The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), Peabody Energy Corporation (NYSE:BTU), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alliance Holdings GP, L.P. (NASDAQ:AHGP).
The largest reduction by percentage was 61.54% in Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P (NASDAQ:CLMT). Marken also shed 40.64% of its position in Heritage-Crystal Clean, Inc. (NASDAQ:HCCI) and 11.31% in International game technology. It also sold off about 10% of its holdings in Loews Corporation (NYSE:L) and Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON).
