By Jonathan Stempel
– Berkshire Hathaway, run by billionaire Warren Buffett, extended its selling of Bank of America shares, and has shed more than $3.8 billion of the second-largest U.S. bank’s stock since mid-July.
Berkshire sold approximately 19.2 million Bank of America shares for $779 million between July 30 and Aug. 1, according to a Thursday night regulatory filing.
Buffett’s conglomerate has sold 90.4 million Bank of America shares since July 17, in 12 straight trading days of selling, regulatory filings show.
It remained the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank’s largest shareholder, owning 942.4 million shares, or 12.1% of shares outstanding, worth about $37.2 billion as of Thursday.
The selling may be weighing on Bank of America’s share price, which has fallen 15% since the day before Berkshire’s sales began. In contrast, the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index, whose 24 members include Bank of America, is down just 7%.
Bank of America closed down $1.92 at $37.58 on Friday.
Berkshire’s sales began after Bank of America’s stock price had risen 77% since late October, and traded at nearly 1.3 times book value.
That boosted the value of Berkshire’s shares to over $45 billion, more than triple the $14.6 billion it paid for them.
Berkshire must report further sales until its stake falls below 10%. It will report second-quarter earnings on Saturday morning.
Buffett, 93, one of the world’s most revered investors, has invested continuously in Bank of America since 2011, when Berkshire bought $5 billion of preferred stock.
The purchase signaled Buffett’s confidence in Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan’s ability to restore the bank to health following the 2008 financial crisis.
Buffett told CNBC in April 2023 he liked Moynihan “enormously,” and at the time did not want to sell the bank’s stock.
Berkshire is based in Omaha, Nebraska. Its operations include Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad and several dozen other insurance, energy, industrial and retail businesses. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Christopher Cushing, Marguerita Choy and David Gregorio)
