Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold nearly $1 billion worth of Bank of America shares as his firm continues to cut its stake in the second-largest US lender.
The conglomerate sold about 24.7 million Bank of America shares, worth $981.9 million, between last Friday and Tuesday, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday.
Berkshire has now shed about $5.4 billion worth of Bank of America shares in a string of sales since mid-July.
Bank of America’s stock was up 0.7% early Wednesday morning and is up 17% for the year.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Hathaway’s market cap surpassed $1 trillion on Wednesday, reflecting investor confidence in the conglomerate that Buffett built over nearly six decades into what many consider a proxy for the American economy.
Berkshire joined six other companies, mainly from the technology sector, above $1 trillion: Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon.com and Facebook parent Meta Platforms.
Berkshire’s stock sell-off is a sharp pivot from last year, when the 93-year-old known as the “Oracle” and the “Sage of Omaha” praised Bank of America and its CEO Brian Moynihan, who took the helm in 2010.
“I like Brian Moynihan enormously,” Buffett told CNBC in April 2023. “I don’t wanna sell it.”
But Berkshire Hathaway has been steadily backing off its longtime stake in the Charlotte, NC-based lender.
The firm started investing in the major US bank in 2011, when it bought $5 billion of preferred stock.
Buffett’s involvement with the bank coincided with struggles following the 2008 financial crisis, and his investment helped to calm investor concerns and drive the share price up.
Berkshire Hathaway eventually grew its stake in the bank to more than 10%.
Despite the firm’s latest sale, it is still Bank of America’s largest shareholder. Buffett’s firm owns 903.8 million shares worth $35.85 billion, based on Tuesday’s closing price.
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The firm has also been selling off its sizable stake in Apple.
source: nypost.com/buffetts-berkshire-hathaway-dumps-nearly-1b-bank-of-america-shares/
