Recently, Harbinger Capital Partners, one of the largest investors in The New York Times Company (NYT), offloaded a chunk of its stake in the company. The investment firm sold about 5 million shares at $8.25 per share, fetching $41.3 million in total. This reduces its ownership interest to 16.38% from 19.94%. The shares of New York Times surpassed the selling price and closed at $8.37 on Tuesday, up 2.6% from the previous day’s session. Harbinger made it clear that it has no intention to shed its entire stake. Harbinger Capital started purchasing The New York Times shares nearly two years ago, at prices ranging between $15 and $20 a share, and investing approximately $500 million in aggregate. The firm incurred a significant loss by selling shares at $8.25 each. The investment firm was looking for a ...

• This morning’s reports say the Government of Singapore Investment Corp has reduced its stake in Citigroup (NYSE:C) to less than 5% through open market sales

• The CEO of Cadbury (NYSE:CBY) noted "complementary elements" of Kraft (NYSE:KFT) and Cadbury, but said he would still advise rejecting the deal at the current $16 billion bid

• Oracle's (NASDAQ:ORCL) CEO noted dangers of the European regulatory delay of its proposed $7 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:JAVA), saying Sun Micro is currently losing about $100 million a month

• AMR (NYSE:AMR) announced a 30 million common and $250 million convertible senior notes offering

• Louisiana-Pacific (NYSE:LPX) said it is planning a public offering of 18 million shares of its common stock

• TJX (NYSE:TJX) said its board approved a $1 billion share buyback, reflecting 6.2% of the company's outstanding shares

• Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing search engine managed to grab more share from Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), reaching 9.3% of

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The once booming business of private equity faces an uncertain future. What’s not uncertain, however, is that many private equity deals are imploding from the weight of leveraged debt and greed. Inevitable bankruptcies will result in higher unemployment and a deeper recession.

Private equity is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded.  The name “private equity”is the rechristened, kinder and more gentile label for what used to be known as leveraged buyouts, or LBOs. But make no mistake about it, while leverage may not be part of the name any more, it remains a big part of every private equity deal.

LBO firms, or “franchises”, as Henry Kravis, co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), likes to call his shop, acquire publicly traded operating companies. Then they streamline management and operations to increase profitability and hope to cash out

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Phil FalconePhillip Falcone of Harbinger CapitalI just had someone send me a link to this very short bio on Phil Falcone of Harbinger Capital which is a bit dated now:CITY: New YorkFIRM: Harbinger Capital PartnersAGE: 43A Harvard hockey star turned junk-bond trader, Falcone changed the name of his five-year-old fund company at the start of the year from Harbert Management Corp. to Harbinger Capital, for no apparent reason, as far as we can tell. By any name, with $3 billion under management and another year of nice returns (13.5 percent),ESTIMATED INCOME: $40 – $50 MILLIONView the Harbinger Capital Hedge Fund Tracker Profile here: Harbinger Capital Partners Hedge FundArticles Related to Phillip Falcone Testimony During The Congressional Hearings:Top Tools...

Last week, market volatility reached record levels. Dan Amoss says the wild gyrations in stocks are the result of hedge funds liquidating assets to cover their highly-leveraged positions. This means some good firms — especially those providing vital functions in the food and energy markets — are now massively undervalued.

More from Penny Sleuth:

Congratulations on making it through yet another week of panic, margin calls, and forced selling! If you’re surviving, and you’re not down too much this year, you’re better off than most money managers.

Out of the thousands of hedge funds in existence, hundreds are closing up shop and liquidating, if the past weeks’ trading action was any indication.

Many of these hedge funds should never have been started to begin with, because their illusory gains during the credit bubble were too often made with leverage, rather than analytical talent.

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Recommend Plays That Go Up Even When the Market Goes Down

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Lehman Brothers VictimsHedge Fund Victims of the BankruptcyThe following is a short and far from exhaustive list of hedge funds which were recently affected by Lehman Brother's bankruptcy.London-based MKM Longboat Capital Advisors LLP said last week it will close its $1.5 billion Multi-Strategy fund in part because of assets stuck at LehmanLehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy probably means the end of hedge-fund manager Oak Group Inc. after 22 years in business. Diamondback Capital Management LLC, a Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund, told investors that it had assets of $777 million stranded in LehmanManagers with a smaller percentage of assets in Lehman limbo include Harbinger Capital Partners, Amber Capital LP and Bay Harbour Management LLC, which are each based in New York, and RAB Capital Plc and ...

CHINA’S Sinosteel has all but won control of iron ore miner Midwest after four of the takeover target’s directors agreed to sell their shares.

Midwest chairman Jesse Taylor and directors Francis Ng, Steven Chong and Stephen de Belle said they would accept the $6.38 cash a share offer from Sinosteel for their collective 4.1 per cent holding in the company.

This will give Sinosteel, China’s second largest iron ore trader, a 49.68 per cent stake in Midwest.

The Chinese metals trader was also rumoured to have bought an additional 1 per cent of Midwest on market, taking it close to controlling more than 50 per cent of the company.

However, a compulsory takeover may still be a battle with Murchison Metals vowing to hang on to its 10 per cent stake in Midwest.

Murchison’s largest shareholder – Harbinger Capital Partners – also holds 9.11 per cent of Midwest’s share register, while two Midwest directors remain

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