We closed out positions in Airbus Group (XPAR:AIR, Financial), formerly known as the European Aeronautic Defence& Space Company (France: EADS), and ThyssenKrupp (Germany: TKA)
We bought the shares in EADS during a sell-off in response to the company’s unpopular proposal to buy BAE Systems in 2012. EADS ultimately abandoned the merger and insteadrepurchased a lot of stock while also reorganizing its corporate structure to reduce the influenceof several government shareholders. The shares rallied and we sold for a nice gain. We also bought TKA shares in 2012. Though management made significant progress in restructuring thecompany, a difficult external environment meant that asset sales and cash flow generation fellshort of their hopes and ours. We exited with a very small loss
From David Einhorn (Trades, Portfolio)'s fourth quarter 2013 commentary.
