Baupost’s Seth Klarman found a few buying opportunities during second quarter’s market turmoil, picking up shares of Amazon and others. The hedge fund manager added a new stake in the e-commerce giant last quarter, worth $63.5 million, a regulatory filing showed. This marked the first time in at least 10 years that Klarman has owned Amazon, according to InsiderScore. Shares of Amazon got a boost last month after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter revenue and gave an optimistic outlook. The stock is still down about 13% this year. Klarman also bought more than $240 million worth of Warner Bros. Discovery , the newly minted merger between Warner Media and Discovery, making the bet his 10th-biggest holding at the end of June. The media giant, under new CEO David Zaslav , is putting more emphasis on theatrical releases and traditional linear TV, to differentiate itself from an increasingly competitive space. Meanwhile, Baupost added $160 million worth of New Oriental Education, a provider of private educational services in China, in the second quarter. The stock has rebounded 20% this year after the industry survived a regulatory crackdown. As of the end of June, Baupost maintained some of its longtime holdings, such as Liberty Global , Just Eat Takeaway , Qorvo and ViaSat . While building a stake in Amazon, the hedge fund trimmed its bets on other tech names including Alphabet and Intel. Klarman has drawn comparisons to Warren Buffett for his disciplined and patient value style. And just like Buffett, Klarman has increased his exposure to the tech sector in recent years to take advantage of its explosive growth. His hedge fund manages about $30 billion as of 2020 after racking up years of market-beating returns. The manager said in an investor letter earlier this year that surging inflation poses a “real danger” to the markets and that he’s hedging against outsized price gains.
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