Steven Cohen Cuts His Stake in Metro Bank for Third Time

(Bloomberg) -- The private investment vehicle of billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen has cut its stake in Metro Bank Plc for the third time in less than a week.

Cohen Private Ventures reduced its holding in Metro from 7.7% to 6.5% last week, according to a U.K. regulatory filing. The Connecticut-based tycoon's vehicle remains the biggest investor in Metro, although its holding has dwindled from almost 10%.

Shares in Metro Bank have lost nearly 90% of their value this year as the British lender admitted in January to errors in the way it measured the risk on parts of its home lending portfolio.

Cohen was the biggest backer of a 375 million-pound ($485 million) share sale in May that was launched to bolster the bank's capital position. Shares in Metro were sold at 500 pence in that fundraising, compared to last week's closing price of 187 pence.

At the same time as Cohen cut his Metro stake, Colombian billionaire investor Jaime Gilinski Bacal emerged as one of the lender's biggest shareholders. Last week, Bacal purchased 7.4 million shares in Metro through a British Virgin Islands-registered vehicle called Spaldy Investments Ltd., making it the company's third largest investor.

Metro Bank declined to comment. A representative for Cohen declined to comment.

--With assistance from Katia Porzecanski.

To contact the reporter on this story: Harry Wilson in London at hwilson57@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers, Keith Campbell

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