Fidelity Now Owns 14.5% of Giant Group

Fidelity National Financial Inc. has increased its stake in Giant Group Ltd. to 14.5%, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Fidelity said it purchased an additional 64,000 common shares between Jan. 19 and Jan. 25 at $9 per share, giving the Irvine-based company a total of 650,489 shares.

Fidelity and its chairman, William P. Foley II, stopped short of a 15% ownership stake that would have triggered a “poison pill” package that Giant officials adopted after Fidelity started to acquire Giant stock.

The defense is designed to make it prohibitively expensive for an outside group to take over Giant.

Earlier this month, Giant, which controls the Rally’s hamburger chain, filed a federal lawsuit alleging that Foley and an unidentified group were illegally conspiring to acquire company stock.

Fidelity responded with its own suit, denying any improprieties in its stock purchases and alleging that Giant Chairman Burt Sugarman and other company officials had defamed Fidelity and Foley.

Foley on Jan. 8 said that he wasn’t interested in a hostile bid for Giant “at this time.”