Closely Watched Pro Teams with Buffett, Looks for Rebound

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 9:59 am EST, Tuesday November 10, 2009

Diversified holding company Leucadia National (NYSE: LUK - News) has sometimes been considered a "mini-Berkshire Hathaway" (NYSE: BRK-A - News, BRK-B - News), and lately its been doing business with Buffett's firm.

Leucadia firmed its ties with Berkshire in September when the two joined to buy struggling commercial real estate finance company Capmark Financial Group's mortgage loan and servicing business for up to $490 million.

Leucadia investors are hoping that the deal and more like it help ignite a turnaround in the company's shares. In its annual letter to shareholders for 2008, Leucadia called 2008 an "annus horribilis." Shares fell -58% during the year and are up only 18% for 2009.

Earlier in the month, the company reported that third-quarter profit was more than more than four times year ago numbers.

Looking at Leucadia's recently disclosed U.S.-listed holdings, Chairman and CEO Ian Cumming and President and COO Joseph Steinberg generally have stakes in just a handful of equities traded on U.S. exchanges.

In Q3, a portfolio of publicly traded equities that has shrunk in recent quarters stayed small. The company added to a stake in independent auto finance company Americredit (NYSE: ACF - News), while holding steady with investment firm Capital Southwest (Nasdaq: CSWC - News), financial services firm International Assets Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: IAAC - News), and its largest U.S.-listed, publicly traded holding, investment bank Jefferies (NYSE: JEF - News).

Investors clued into Leucadia's incredible track record have watched the firm's moves closely; an investment in Cumming and Steinberg's firm has returned an astonishing compounded annual growth rate of 28.8% since inception through the end of last year, even after a disasterous 2008.

Looking at tickerspy.com's graph charting the performance of Leucadia's end-of-Q3 holdings so far during Q4, one can see that the holdings have been faring well. If you want to see how your performance stacks up to this "mini-Berkshire" or see some other Leucadia holdings, visit tickerspy.com to see the firm's top holdings and a chart of their combined performance.

Pro portfolio performance is based on institutions' top-15 holdings as disclosed in quarter-end filings with the SEC. Pro performance does not take into account additional holdings beyond the top 15 nor does it include positions that are not required to be disclosed by the SEC. As such, Pro portfolio performance should be considered an approximation and not a precise record of how an institution has performed over time.

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