According to Paulson & Co internal documents John Paulson is thinking soon to be CEO-less BofA will be worth three times what he bought it for in two and a half years time. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported JP's been telling his investors Bank of America still has considerable upside and room to double in value.
But according to documents we saw, JP started telling investors in July he got into this trade with the expectation the stock would more than triple by the end of 2011.
As first reported by Chris Gillick in the September issue of AR magazine, Paulson's cost basis for his huge-ass BofA position was $9. Using a conservative P/E multiple of 10, and a 2011 earnings per share estimate of $3, Paulson's analysis estimates $BAC should be worth $30 at the tail end of 2011. In other words, pay no attention to JP taking a mere 8.2 million shares off his 168 million position in the third quarter.
Given that some of you might make your own estimate off of JP $3 EPS prediction here's how Team Paulson does the math via his marketing material:

When asked if JP's bullish view on the bank was realistic Timothy Connolly of Sconset Capital said, "That's entirely possible. In fact if BofA does manage to get out of the weeds they may buyback a boatload of stock and earnings per share could be even higher." If you really think they'll be out the weeds and estimated 15x a $3 EPS, the stock could reach $45 at the beginning of 2012.
Paulson's spokesman declined to comment on the investment. While King Cohen has pretty much given up BofA, we don't expect JP to be selling out of his entire stake any time soon.