Lampert Raises Exposure To Financials In 4Q

Hedge fund billionaire Edward Lampert built up exposure to the financial sector last quarter, a regulatory filing Tuesday shows.

Lampert-affiliated RBS Partners reported a substantially larger Citigroup Inc. (C) stake as of Dec. 31, as well as 1.5 million new shares in Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and about 454,000 in Bank of America Corp. (BAC). Lampert's Citigroup holdings rose 12.5 million shares to 31.3 million.

The chairman of Sears Holding Corp. (SHLD) also reported 4.5 million shares in lender CIT Group Inc. (CIT), after reporting no CIT stake in the previous period.

The moves reverse some of the adjustments Lampert made over the summer, when he reduced exposure to several financial stocks and eliminated what was once a stake of 15.4 million CIT shares.

Lampert also kept cutting holdings in Sallie Mae (SLM), which he reduced last summer as well. Lampert reported 2.9 million shares in the student lender as of Dec. 31, down from 4.3 million in the previous quarter.

Other adjustments made by the Sears chairman include a trimming of nearly 200,000 shares in Capital One Financial Corp. (COF) and about 400,000 in marketing-services company Acxiom Corp. (ACXM).

Many investors who manage more than $100 million are required to disclose holdings of most types of securities within 45 days of the end of a quarter. The filings give the public its freshest possible look inside the portfolios of well-known investors.

The fourth-quarter deadline was Tuesday.

-By Brendan Conway, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]