Daily Journal 13F: Charlie Munger Cuts Stake In Posco

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Charlie Munger significantly reduced the stake of Daily Journal Corporation in Posco based on its 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the fourth quarter of 2014.

Mr. Munger’s equity portfolio at Daily Journal has a market value of $135, 324,000 as of December 31, last year.

The filing showed that Mr. Munger sold 54,855 shares of Posco, bringing down Daily Journal’s stake in the company to 9,745 shares. Posco is a distributor and manufacturer of steel products based in Korea.

Mr. Munger initially acquired 64,600 shares in Posco for Daily Journal in the fourth quarter of 2013. He maintained the stake for a year, until he decided to dump a huge portion of it in the fourth quarter.

The stock price of Posco was slightly down at $60.24 on Monday. Over the past 52-weeks, the shares of the company traded from its highest level at $86.99 per share to as low as $57.19 per share. The stock lost more than 10% of its value over the past year.

Munger maintains Daily Journal’s other stockholdings

Based on his equity portfolio, Mr. Munger maintained the other stockholdings of Daily Journal during the fourth quarter. The legal publishing company still owns 1,591,800 shares of Wells Fargo, its largest stockholding followed by Bank of America Corp 2,300,000 shares. Daily Journal also still owns 140,000 shares of U.S. Bancorp.

Last week, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $4 million in penalty ($2 million) and restitution payments to direct consumers ($2 million) for violations on credit card accounts by its former affiliate.

Last January, Wells Fargo and Morgan Chase and JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $36 million in penalties to settle the charges filed by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in connection with its involvement in a “mortgage kickback scheme.”

Daily Journal financial performance

Mr. Munger serves as chairman of Daily Journal. He is well-known as Warren Buffett’s partner and vice-chairman at Berkshire Hathaway.

Last month, Daily Journal posted consolidated pretax income of $141,000 for the fiscal year 2014, down from $4,569,000 in the same period in the previous year.  The company consolidated revenues were $43.42 million compared with $37.67 million in 2013.

Over the past 52-weeks, the shares of Daily Journal declined from its highest leval of $280.51 per share to as low as $154.12 a share. The stock closed $188.01 per share on Monday. The company’s stock is still up by more than 18% over the past year.  Daily Journal has approximately $256 million in market capitalization.

Charlie Munger Daily Journal

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