Teachers’ invests in U.S. financials, sells shares of Canadian banks

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan built up its holdings in American financial services stocks and sold some shares of Canadian banks in the second quarter, according to the latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

One of its biggest moves was the number of shares held in Bank of America, which jumped by nearly 600%.

Teachers’ increased its holdings of these stocks in the second quarter versus the end of the first quarter of 2013:

  • American Express (225,300 compared with 196,807);
  • AIG (480,323 compared with 449,863);
  • Ameriprise Financial (48,321 compared with 44,402);
  • Bank of America (17,906,660 compared with 2,619,001);
  • Capital One (2,870,066 compared with 1,998,567);
  • Discover Financial Services (116,507 compared with 108,498);
  • Goldman Sachs (102,079 compared with 94,701);
  • M&T (32,224 compared with 28,600); and
  • Morgan Stanley (333,177 compared with 309,190).

The pension fund also bought 551,052 shares of Keycorp and 159,953 shares of State Street. It had no holdings in either company at the end of the first quarter.

At the same time, Teachers’ decreased its holdings in these Canadian banks:

  • Bank of Montreal (2,011,889 compared with 2,114,786);
  • Bank of Nova Scotia (3,522,318 compared with 3,575,974);
  • CIBC (1,375,516 compared with 1,489,784);
  • Royal Bank of Canada (4,199,851 compared with 4,546,686); and
  • TD Bank (2,630,747 compared with 2,941,635).

The fund also added to its holdings in some technology stocks during the quarter:

  • Apple (1,786,770 compared with 204,436);
  • Baidu (102,000 compared with 35,000);
  • eBay (655,590 compared with 623,355);
  • Hewlett-Packard (480,136 compared with 469,147); and
  • IBM (570,441 compared with 550,132).

Teachers’ also bought up 1,971,446 shares of BlackBerry, formerly Research In Motion, and 848,803 shares of Dell. It didn’t own stock in either company at the end of the first quarter.

During the second quarter, the fund cut back on other technology stocks. It sold about 11% of its stake in Microsoft and held about 5.3 million shares at the end of June. Teachers’ also reduced its holding in Google by less than 1% to 138,327 shares.

Institutional investment managers with more than US$100 million in securities traded, such as Teachers’, must file a 13F form with the SEC within 45 days of the end of a calendar quarter.

Related articles: