Some encouraging words about Brandes

Brandes Investment Partners typically holds investments three to five years, does not engage in activist activity, and invests in mature industries, according to Ben Silverman, research director at InsiderScore, who read my post yesterday. For example, its biggest concentration of investments is in the telecommunications industry, Silverman told me in an e-mail.

"To answer your reader's question about GCI going private: Based on Brandes' investment philosophy and track record, it's doubtful that the firm would make a push for any type of extraordinary corporate action,'' he says. "The possibility always exists, of course. But Brandes' only history of 'activism' came in 2005 when the firm said it would vote against private-equity firm Ripplewood Holdings' proposed purchase of appliance maker Maytag.'' (Whirlpool eventually won that battle.)

Silverman also tells me that Brandes, Gannett's top stockholder, started buying GCI toward the end of 2005. Here's its history of ownership; you can see its stake building quarter by quarter:

• Oct. 31, 2007: 26.2 million shares
• Sept. 30: 23.6 million
• June 30: 19.9 million
• March 31: 19.1 million
• Dec. 31, 2006: 15.5 million
• Sept. 30: 14.5 million
• June 30: 11.7 million
• March 31: 6.1 million
• Dec. 31, 2005: 2.2 million

Silverman also notes Brandes' stock holdings in other newspaper publishers, as of Sept. 30 of this year:

• McClatchy: 8.2 million shares
• New York Times Co.: 3.1 million
• Tribune: 586,721 shares