Edward Lampert, chief executive officer of ESL Partners L.P. and its affiliates reduced his stake in AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) to 27,686,646 shares or 23.3% based on his latest regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Based on the filing ESL Partners beneficially owns 14,479,151 shares of AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN), and it entered into a lock-up agreement with Lampert regarding the purchase and sale of securities he owned. Under the agreement, ESL Partners have dispositive power over, and to indirectly beneficially own stocks held by Lampert.
RBS Partners and Lampert have dispositive power over and indirectly beneficially own the 1,817,307 shares held by SPE Master II, 4,945 shares owned by RBS Investment Management, 9,972,157 shares held by ESL, 1,413,086 shares held by SPE II, 1,817,307 shares held by SPE Master II and 4,945 Shares held by Institutional.
Lampert’s open markets sale
Lampert and his funds sold some of their stakes in AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) from February 18 to February 24 at a price range of $51.08 to $52.02 per share in open markets. Lampert sold total of 850,000 shares, 316, 390 share, and additional 22,765 shares on February 18, 19, and 20, respectively.
AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) is the second largest stockholdings of Lampert, which accounts for 31.43% of his portfolio as of December 31, 2013.
Retail sales/quarterly earnings results
The stock price of AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) climbed 6.2% to $51.13 per share early this month, days before releasing its retail sales performance for the month of January. The company reported that its retail sales of new vehicles rose 0.4% to 19,434 units year-over-year.
AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) reported $0.83 earnings per share, a 24% increase during the fourth quarter of 2013. The company previously recorded $0.67 earnings per share in the same period a year earlier. Its revenues rose 8.4% to $4.5 billion.
Over the past 52-week range, the stock price of AutoNation, Inc. (NYSE:AN) increased from $40.30 per share to $54.49 per share. The shares of the company are trading around $51.98 per share, up by more than 1% at the time of this writing, 1:55 P.M. in New York.
