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Warren Buffett’s company sold a bunch of stocks and made at least one confidential bet last quarter.
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Berkshire Hathaway exited long-held stakes in GM, J&J, P&G, UPS and Mondelez.
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Berkshire didn’t disclose one or more of its purchases as it was still building its positions.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a bunch of long-held stocks last quarter, and started building positions in one or more mystery companies, a SEC filing revealed late on Tuesday.
The famed investor’s conglomerate exited its positions in General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Mondelez, UPS, Celanese, and Activision Blizzard. It first invested in P&G, J&J, UPS, and Mondelez in the 2000s, and GM in 2012.
Berkshire also reduced its stakes in Amazon, Chevron, HP, Markel, and Globe Life. On the other hand, it disclosed new positions in SiriusXM, as well as the Atlanta Braves and both “A” and “C” shares of Liberty Media Live, which stemmed from the spin-off of the Braves into a separate public company this summer.
Notably, Berkshire omitted one or more holdings from its public portfolio update and requested the SEC treat them as confidential for now. Buffett and his team asked for and received the same discretion when they were building stakes in Chevron, Verizon, and Marsh & McLennan in 2020, as they feared disclosing the incomplete wagers would drive up the stocks’ prices and increase their cost bases.
Berkshire’s batch of stock sales was foreshadowed by its latest earnings, which showed the company spent only $1.7 billion on stocks but sold $7 billion worth last quarter. The conglomerate’s cash pile also swelled to a record $157 billion, suggesting Buffett and his colleagues struggled to find bargains in the period.
Buffett and his colleagues made similar tweaks to their stock portfolio in the second quarter. They switched out three holdings and pared several others, while also taking stakes in a trio of homebuilders.
Berkshire’s vice chairman and Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger, hinted he had soured on GM during a recent podcast. “In its heyday, General Motors was a great company — it just gradually went to hell one contract at a time,” he said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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