By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Several prominent investors raised their stakes in General Electric Co (N:GE) in the third quarter, before its shares sank in recent weeks, filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Wednesday.
D.E. Shaw & Co LP, Viking Global Investors LP and Canyon Capital Advisors LLC each reported larger holdings in GE in the quarter ended Sept. 30 than in the prior quarter, according to filing data collected by Refinitiv and reviewed by Reuters.
GE shares have collapsed more than 50 percent this year, including 31 percent over the last month. In October, GE posted a quarterly loss of $22.8 billion, cut its annual dividend to just 4 cents a share and told investors it was facing a deepening federal accounting probe. Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp has promised to sell assets with "urgency" to reduce its high debt.
It is not clear whether the fund investors kept their stakes during the selloff. None of the funds responded to requests for comment.
Quarterly disclosures of hedge fund managers' stock holdings in 13F filings with the SEC are one of the few public ways of tracking what the managers are selling and buying.
But relying on the filings to develop an investment strategy comes with some risk because the disclosures are made 45 days after the end of each quarter and may not reflect current positions.