British billionaire Joseph Lewis has taken a punt on Bear Stearns by acquiring a 7 per cent stake in the beleaguered US investment bank.
Lewis has purchased US$860.4 million worth of Bear Stearns' shares and become one of its largest shareholders.
The bank's shares closed up 2 per cent at US$107.50 on the New York Stock Exchange on 10 September, after moving as high as US$109.55 earlier.
Lewis disclosed the stake, which amounts to 8.1 million shares, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week.
His holding is more than any other shareholder reported at the end of June.
Putnam Investment Management was the largest institutional shareholder, before Lewis stepped in, with 7.03 million shares, or 6 per cent, of the outstanding shares.
Bears Stearns chairman and chief executive James E Cayne owns 5.8 percent of the firm's stock, according to the latest Bear Stearns proxy statement.
Bear Stearns shares have fallen by about 35 per cent this year after two of its hedge funds were wiped out by the recent crisis in the US sub-prime market.
Lewis made his fortune as a currency trader in the 1970s and later moved to the Bahamas.
