Klarman's Big Move: Trimming Alphabet, Betting Big on Fiserv

In Q4 2025, billionaire investor Seth Klarman's Baupost Group made two significant portfolio moves. First, the fund sold off 41% of its stake in Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL). Despite this large reduction, Alphabet remains a top-10 holding for Baupost.

The sale came after a stellar year for Alphabet, where its stock surged about 70%. The company successfully navigated major challenges, including a high-profile antitrust lawsuit and proving its AI capabilities with Gemini and AI Overviews to defend its search dominance.

Simultaneously, Baupost made a bold contrarian purchase, increasing its stake in the fintech company Fiserv (FISV) by a massive 146%. This move is particularly notable because Fiserv's stock has plummeted 75% over the past year.

Fiserv's troubles began in Q3 2025 when it reported earnings far below expectations and slashed its full-year guidance, causing the stock to crash 44% in a single day. The company faced issues with its Clover payments platform, including customer complaints about fees and lawsuits over misleading growth metrics, while its core banking business also showed weakness.

For a disciplined value investor like Klarman, trimming Alphabet is a classic case of profit-taking. After a 70% run, the stock's valuation may no longer align with his margin-of-safety principles, even if the business is strong. It reflects a view that much of the near-term upside may be captured.

The massive bet on Fiserv is the real story. Klarman is famously known for buying distressed assets, and Fiserv fits that bill perfectly. The stock now trades at less than 7 times forward earnings, a dramatic discount to its historical average of around 30 times earnings.

This investment is a high-conviction, high-risk bet on a turnaround. Fiserv still holds leading positions in bank core processing and point-of-sale payments, and it has a new CEO, Mike Lyons, tasked with fixing customer and investor relations.

Klarman's move signals a belief that the market has over-penalized Fiserv and that the potential reward—if management can stabilize the business and regain trust—far outweighs the risk at current prices. It's a quintessential value play: buying a seemingly broken company when sentiment is at its worst.