Harbinger Capital Partners systematically has cut back its stake in the New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) by more than a third –34 percent to be exact. The latest sale took it down to 12.79 percent, according to an after-market filing with the SEC. The activist hedge fund raised $22.1 million by selling 2,651,635 shares on Dec. 1 at $8.35 a share, according to another filing. It’s the third major sale since September: on Nov. 17, Harbinger sold 2.5 million shares of its then-16.4 percent at $9 a share for $22.5 million, reducing its stake to 14.64 percent. That followed the sale of 5 million shares at $8.25 per share for $41.2 million in September — and that was down from a high of 19.4 percent in March 2008.
All told, Harbinger has sold $85.8 million in NYT stock since September. That’s not close to what it cost the company to accumulate most of its stake at rates from around $17 to nearly $21 per share. Put another way, that’s less than the $87.8 million Harbinger spent during just two days in early 2008 when it was buying up stock at a frenetic pace.

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