Lansdowne Buys Google, Amazon While Selling its Stake in IBM

Lansdowne Partners LP, the largest European hedge fund that invests in stocks, bought stakes in Google Inc. (GOOG), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Morgan Stanley and sold shares of International Business Machines Corp. worth $464.5 million.

The hedge fund purchased 760,952 shares of Google in the fourth quarter valued at $491.5 million and 709,250 shares of Amazon.com valued at $122.8 million, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The London- based firm bought 3.1 million shares of Morgan Stanley valued at $46.7 million.

Lansdowne, which was founded by Paul Ruddock and Steven Heinz in 1998 and oversees about $14.5 billion, sold its IBM (IBM) stake amid a 25 percent gain in the stock last year. The Armonk, New York-based firm, the world’s biggest computer-services provider, has surged 127 percent since 2008 as clients increased spending on software.

Lansdowne sold an earlier stake of 3 million shares of Morgan Stanley (MS) in the third quarter of last year amid a 50 percent slump for the New York-based bank. Morgan Stanley has climbed 40 percent since Sept. 30.

Managers who oversee more than $100 million in equities must file a Form 13F within 45 days of each quarter’s end to list their U.S.-traded stocks, options and convertible bonds.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Westbrook in London at jwestbrook1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net