Out Fox The $treet

After the close last night, Paulson & Co filed a 13D disclosing a presentation to the BOD and a letter sent to the CEO. The goal being for Hartford Financial (HIG) to begin the process of a spin-off of it's Property & Casualty business. Simply Paulson believes that Hartford has an industry low valuation due to the combination of both the P&C and Life business lines that competitors all spun-off long ago. He makes a compelling pitch that the ultra low valuation for the company is based on the thesis that analysts just don't follow or understand it due to the combined business lines. A Travelers (TRV) that focuses on P&C or a Lincoln Financial (LNC) that focuses on Life have higher multiples since the analysts follow either business line, but not both. Without doing all that research I could've told them that Hartford was incredibly cheap trading at close to 40% of book value. Paulson though has an army of analysts that did some incredible research. Ho...

While it doesn't really matter to the stock going forward, its nice to see that Hedge Fund Legend John Paulson loaded up on Hartford Financial (HIG) last quarter. Paulson was famous for betting against the sub-prime sector at the height of the housing boom. His dealings with Goldman Sachs (GS) are what got them into trouble. Considering Paulson has already bought some 44M shares now worth nearly $900M it doesn't exactly portend the stock going up. Its not like he plans to buy more this quarter, but it is nice to see a financial expert back our opinion that HIG trading at 50% of book value is absurd. Otherwise it doesn't change our opinion one bit, but he possibly will bring to light the absurd valuation in this stock. Shares of Hartford Financial Services rose Tuesday after the New York-based hedge fund run by billionaire John Paulson revealed that it had increased its stake in the insurer. THE SPARK: On Tuesday, Paulson & Co. Inc. reported it held 44 million shares...