In the fourth quarter, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. dropped its shareholding of Amazon.com Inc. by almost 75%. The company also increased its stake in the New York Times Co., which was Buffett’s final new venture as CEO of the conglomerate.
According to a regulatory statement on Tuesday, Berkshire, located in Omaha, Nebraska, purchased 5.1 million shares of the media publishing company in the three months ending in December, making a holding worth $351.7 million at year’s end.
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In 2019, Berkshire made its initial investment in Amazon. Despite his past distaste for technology equities, Buffett claimed at the time that he had been “an idiot for not buying” the online retail behemoth’s shares sooner. It currently holds about 2.3 million of the company’s shares.
Berkshire continued to reduce its holdings in Apple Inc. and Bank of America Corp. during the fourth quarter, bringing them down to 1.5% and 7.1%, respectively. In 2024, Buffett began reducing their roles.
During this time, Berkshire Hathaway also raised its ownership of insurance company Chubb Ltd. and oil producer Chevron Corp. to 8.7% and 6.5%, respectively.
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In May 2024, the company revealed its first investment in Chubb, which it had built covertly the year before. After a trade journal revealed that Chubb had made an informal attempt to purchase American International Group Inc., the company’s stock increased by almost 11% during the fourth quarter. The business denied receiving an offer.
With an agreement to acquire Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s petrochemical division for $9.7 billion and a $5.6 billion stake in Alphabet Inc., Buffett, who resigned as CEO last year, seemed to be back on the lookout for acquisitions in recent quarters.
In post-market trading in New York, the New York Times Co.’s stock jumped by over 10%.