Buffett boosts stake in General Motors, reduces interest in Kraft
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway made some significant changes to its stake in key companies in the second quarter of the year, the company has announced (release).
Berkshire said its pre-tax earnings increased by nearly 50 per cent to $4.6bn from $3.2bn in the same period the year before.
The US conglomerate revealed it had raised its stake in General Motors, and taken a new position in Dish Network in the second quarter of the year.
The company sharply decreased its stake in Mondelez International and Kraft Foods, cutting its holdings by 91.8 per cent to 192,666 shares and 88 per cent to 578,000 shares respectively.
Initial media reports said Berkshire reduced its holding in Wells Fargo, American Express, and Coca-Cola, but this is not correct.
Berkshire increased its General Motors stake by 60 percent to 40m shares, now worth around $1.4bn.
The firm also took a new holding in Dish Network of 547,312 shares, worth around $24m based on yesterday's closing price.
In a seperate filing this month, Berkshire said it had spent around $4.64bn on stocks in the second quarter – the most since the third quarter of 2011 when Buffet built his stake in IBM.
A technical glitch prevented the investments from being disclosed yesterday as previously scheduled.