Harbinger Cuts NYT Stake; Stock Jumps

(Updated for stock movement)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- One of the biggest investors in the New York Times(NYT Quote) recently trimmed its stake by 17.5%, selling 5 million shares at $8.25 a pop -- a price promptly surpassed by Times' stock on Tuesday.

Times shares closed Tuesday's session at $8.37, up 21 cents, or 2.6%, easing back from sharper gains earlier in the session. Volume topped 1.9 million shares; average daily turnover is about 1.3 million.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, the hedge fund Harbinger Capital said the share sale, completed last Thursday, reduced its stake in the Times to 16.4%, or about 23.5 million shares, from what had been a 20% piece of the newspaper company.

Harbinger booked a big loss in selling the shares for $8.25 apiece, or about $41.3 million. It started acquiring Times stock some two years ago, paying between $15 and $20 a share and spending about a half a billion dollars.

A Harbinger spokesman told various media outlets that the firm's Times investment is still one of its "core holdings" and that it didn't plan to cashier the entire stake. This past spring, after Harbinger sent out feelers for a sale of the whole caboodle, the media mogul David Geffen reportedly stepped forward with a bid (the sum was never disclosed or discovered), but Harbinger turned him town.

As with most media names, the value of Times' stock has surged since late winter, gaining more than 138% since hitting a 52-week low in February.

Also, in its Sunday editions, the New York Times released the results of a poll that asked advertising buyers and analysts covering print news organizations what they believed third quarter had in store for revenue figures.