Yesterday, Bucyrus (BUCY) announced that it was being acquired by Caterpillar (CAT) in a deal valued at $8.6 billion. But far more interesting to us was this 13G that FMR LLC (that’s Fidelity Investments) filed just last week disclosing that it owned 7.17% of Bucyrus’ outstanding shares.
By sheer coincidence, yesterday was also the day that Fidelity (and other large investors) were required to file their 13Fs for the quarter ended Sept. 30. So we checked out the 13-F that Fidelity filed yesterday and compared it with 13-F that they filed back in mid-August for the quarter ended June 30. Sure enough, Fidelity’s position in Bucyrus grew dramatically between June and September. According to the filings, they owned 3.33 million shares as of June 30 and 5.2 million at the end of September. And as last week’s 13-G clearly shows, they continued to increase their position in Bucyrus, bringing their total holdings up to 5.81 million shares.
Of course, the problem with 13Gs and 13Fs is that you have no idea what Fidelity’s cost basis was, so it’s hard to figure out how much they paid for any of those 5.81 million shares. And, as you can see from this chart, there’s clearly been some ups and downs during the period in question. It’s one of the reasons I wonder why so many people (see these guys for example) spend so much time slicing and dicing those 13Fs and 13Ds and 13Gs looking for investment insight, since the forms really provide a fuzzy picture, at best. Still, I suppose everyone needs a hobby.
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