Hedge fund has sold off most of its AMR shares

FORT WORTH, Texas - Hedge funds that last year ranked as the third-largest shareholder of American Airlines' parent AMR Corp. have sold off nearly their entire position in the company.

Tontine Overseas Associates LLC, an affiliate of Tontine Management, run by Jeffrey Gendell, said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday that it had reduced its holdings to 430,702 shares, or just 0.15 percent of AMR's common stock.

Just last March 24, Gendell's funds held nearly 24.3 million shares or 9.7 percent of AMR, behind only Fidelity Management and Primecap Management, according to AMR's proxy.

Since then, the shares have fallen 42 percent, closing Friday at $5.57.

Gendell did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages left at his Greenwich, Conn., office. Fort Worth-based AMR declined to comment.

Hedge funds were once seen as a way for wealthy investors to get better returns by relying on the funds' sophisticated trading models. But they have been hammered by the stock market collapse and suffered their worst year on record in 2008, with hundreds of them shutting down.

The Wall Street Journal reported in November that Gendell was closing two of his four hedge funds because of heavy losses. The newspaper reported Gendell had told investors in a letter that he was "embarrassed" by the funds' performance.

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