Thornburg Investment Management has more than doubled its stake in Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX). The New Mexico based company reported on Friday that it now holds 10.1% of the Israeli billing and CRM software house, compared with 4.5% at the end of 2008. This means that Thornburg has purchased about 11.4 million Amdocs shares in recent days.
Thornburg now owns about 20.6 million shares in Amdocs, which are currently worth about $396.5 million. Amdocs share fell 47% during 2008 but has risen by 5% since the start of 2009.
Thornburg first reported that it had invested in Amdocs in September 2007, when it then held 5.3% of the company. In Amdocs full year statement for 2008 Thornburg did not appear as one of the company's major shareholders, even though according to Thornburg's own reports it held 4.5% of Amdocs.
Thornburg was founded in 1982 and currently has $34 billion in assets under management. More than half of these investments are in large cap corporations such as AT&T Inc. (NYSE.T) in which it held 4.8% as of December 31 2008. AT&T itself owns 5.1% of Amdocs, and is its largest customer - responsible for 28% of the company's revenue in 2008.
Amdocs share was downgraded by Wedbush Morgan on Friday from "Strong Buy" to "Buy". The share fell 1% on Friday to $19.22, giving a market cap of $3.92 billion.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 18, 2009
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