Hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson dumped a sizable chunk of his stake in South African gold-mining company AngloGold Ashanti just months after recommending it to investors as one of his top stock picks.
Paulson sold 13 percent of his huge stake in AngloGold Ashanti, where he has long been the major shareholder, in the third quarter, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He owned 28.4 million shares at the end of the quarter, down from 32.7 million at the end of the second quarter, when he owned 8.54 percent of the company.
Even while the precious metal gained in recent years, AngloGold Ashanti has not, pummeling Paulson’s Advantage and Advantage Plus funds, the levered version.
Those funds were down 12.64 percent and 18.51 percent, respectively, through October, ranking them among the top 10 hedge-fund losers followed by HSBC.
On May 16, Paulson offered the stock as one of his top picks at the widely followed Ira Sohn conference in New York, where hedge fund bigwigs talk their book.
“The stock has not been a good performer over the last couple of years,” he said then. “For me, that represents an opportunity.”
It may have been an opportunity for Paulson to sell.
After his comments, when the stock was trading around $31, shares rose to a high of about $37 in early June. It has been volatile since then and is now under $30, hitting a 52-week low.
AngloGold Ashanti remained Paulson’s biggest US stock holding by market value, accounting for just over $1 billion of his $12.7 billion of US equity holdings at the end of the quarter.
Paulson held steady with most of his other gold picks, including the SPDR Gold ETF.
mcelarier@nypost.com