The investment company owned by Warren Buffett sold $25.8 million worth of shares in China BYD. Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company controlled by billionaire Warren Buffett, sold 820,500 Hong Kong-listed shares of electric vehicle maker BYD Co (002594. SZ) for HK$201.73 million ($25.78 million), a stock exchange filing showed.
The sale on Oct. 25 lowered Berkshire’s holdings in BYD’s issued H-shares to 7.98% from 8.05%, the filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday showed.
At its peak in late 2008, Berkshire owned 225 million BYD shares at HK$8 apiece. That stake had a 30-fold return during the 14 years Berkshire held it. The conglomerate bought the shares from its subsidiaries Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo to build a rechargeable battery factory in China.
BYD is one of the dozens of businesses that make up Buffett’s company, including insurance and energy operations, railroads, and consumer brands like Dairy Queen, Duracell, and Fruit of the Loom. The firm’s four commas worth of assets as of June were primarily made up of its stock portfolio, which at the time was valued at $353 billion.
The company also has a massive amount of cash, which it uses to invest in itself or to acquire other companies. In addition to the Geico car insurer and BNSF railway, Berkshire owns the airline NetJets, a significant stake in Heinz, and consumer brands such as See’s Candies.
Berkshire is unique in that it functions more like a hedge fund than a typical corporation. Buffett provides no direction or guidance for its subsidiaries, which instead rely on management teams to make decisions and allocate capital independently.
Aside from the aforementioned, Berkshire’s second-quarter filing disclosed new investments in homebuilders such as DR Horton (DHI.N) and Lennar (LEN.N). It also increased its holdings in building materials makers Louisiana-Pacific and Floor & Decor Holdings (FND.O), as well as in furniture retailers including Jordan’s and Clayton Homes.
Berkshire also slashed its holding in video game publisher Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O), cutting its stake by 45% to 14.7 million shares worth $1.2 billion. That sale wasn’t a sign of fading confidence in the stock, however; instead, it was an arbitrage play betting that regulators would approve Microsoft’s planned takeover of ATVI. The stake accounted for about 0.4% of Berkshire’s $353.4 billion equity portfolio as of June 30.