Seth Klarman / Vivendi update

The Baupost / Klarman position taking in Vivendi (see my previous post) news and with it the possibility that I'm missing something continues to nag me so I've done some additional checking.
It's not really important, but I tend to get obsessed once a subject interests me.

Turns out that Klarman took a position in a French company in the late 90's : link.
The 95-2001 Baupost fund letters are compiled here.

This company is Chargeurs (ticker : CRI). The Value and opportunity blog had signaled it but I hadn't noticed.

If you check the 2011 Chargeur Group annual report, page 12, The Baupost Group still holds ~9 % of the capital, some ~15 years later

Actionnaire = shareholder
action = share
nombre d'actions = number of shares




I wasn't able to find much details about Chargeurs in the Baupost letters, but the AMF (=French SEC) requires major shareholders to officialy register when they cross some treshholds (5%, 10%,...).
Their records are public.

Turns out that
in '98 Baupost had more than 5 % : link (in French)
in '99 Baupost had more than 10 % of Chargeurs : link
in '11 Baupost went under 10 % : link.

Below is the long term graph of Chargeurs.
I checked it, taking into account stock splits and Francs => Euro conversion and checked if it was consistent with some pre-2000 Chargeurs annual reports, but a mistake is always possible.

If I'm not mistaken and if the long-term graph is right, Baupost is facing a large potential loss on this position.




So whats's my point ?

Klarman position-taking in Vivendi is a strong positive signal, not a guarantee
And I'm still a fan of Seth Klarman.

P.S : for those interested, Chargeurs currently trades at 25 % of book value and 2011 PER is 4.