Eddie Lampert keeps selling AutoNation's stock: He has unloaded $55 million worth of shares this year.

By Tomi Kilgore

Lampert is still the car retailer's second-largest shareholder, with an 11% stake

Billionaire investor Eddie Lampert keeps cutting down his holdings of AutoNation Inc., having sold more than $55 million worth of the car retailer's stock so far this year.

In a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late Tuesday, Lampert disclosed that he sold 31,477 AutoNation (AN) shares on the open market on May 5, at a weighted average price of $133.4665.

Lampert still has a stake of 5.2 million shares in the company, or about 11.4% of the shares outstanding. That puts him behind only Bill Gates' Cascade Investments LLC, which holds 21% of the shares outstanding, according to AutoNation's proxy statement.

So far this year, Lampert has filed eight Form 4s that disclosed sales of AutoNation shares. In total, he has sold 396,277 shares in 2023 at a weighted average price of $139.0074, according to a MarketWatch calculation, for total proceeds of $55.09 million.

The stock slumped 1.5% to $133.10, or about 4.2% below where Lampert sold his stock. The stock has soared 24.0% year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 7.8%.

Lampert also filed a Form 4 on Jan. 4, in which he disclosed a sale of 99,380 AutoNation shares at $107.295 on Dec. 30, for proceeds of $10.66 million.

Lampert was a member of AutoNation's board for five years, until May 2007. He became famous for buying Sears and merging it with Kmart, then profiting even as he led the iconic retailer into bankruptcy, in which it remained mired in for years.

-Tomi Kilgore

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05-11-23 0807ET

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