((Automated translation by Reuters, please see disclaimer https://bit.ly/rtrsauto))
(Reworked first paragraph; added comments from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, and context)
Berkshire Hathaway
BRKa.N, Warren Buffett’s company, has again reduced its stake in BYD 1211.HK 002594.SZ, the Chinese company that overtook Tesla TSLA.O last year as China’s largest electric vehicle maker. world.
Berkshire sold 1.3 million Hong Kong-listed BYD shares for HK$310.5 million ($39.8 million), according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday.
The sale reduced Berkshire’s stake in the H shares issued by BYD from 7.02% to 6.90%.
Berkshire began investing in Shenzhen-based BYD in 2008, paying $230 million for about 225 million shares, which then amounted to a 10 percent stake.
He started selling shares in 2022, by which time BYD’s stock price had increased more than 20 times. The stock price has fallen about 30% since peaking in June 2022.
Berkshire’s investment in BYD was the brainchild of Charlie Munger, the late vice chairman of Berkshire.
Mr. Munger told the Daily Journal publishing and software company’s 2023 annual meeting that he had “never helped Berkshire do anything as good as BYD.”
Although Berkshire also invests in Japan’s five largest trading houses, Buffett said at its annual meeting in May that his Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate would continue to invest primarily in the United States. BYD was an exception.
Charlie banged the table with me twice and said, you know, ‘Buy, buy, buy,'” Mr. Buffett told shareholders. “BYD was one of them, and Costco COST .O was the other…. He was right, largely, in both cases
