Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold 1 million more shares of Chinese EV maker BYD.Berkshire Hathaway still owns 153.3 million shares of BYD, which represents a 14% stake.Buffett’s firm initially invested $232 million in the automaker in 2008, creating billions of dollars in profits. Loading Something is loading.
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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway said it sold 1.1 million more shares of BYD in a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange on Monday.
The share sale, which took place last week, represented the seventh time Berkshire has reduced its stake in the Chinese EV maker since August.
Berkshire Hathaway initially purchased its BYD stake in 2008, acquiring 225 million shares for about $232 million. In late 2021, Berkshire owned about 21% of BYD, according to Hong Kong regulatory filings, worth more than $7 billion dollars at its peak last year.
Now, Buffett is taking profits as the company sees great success in China with its affordable priced electric and hybrid vehicles. In 2022, BYD sold nearly 2 million vehicles and bested Tesla in sales volume within the Chinese market.
Accounting for all of Berkshire Hathaway’s share sales of BYD, which began in August 2022, the conglomerate now owns 153.3 million shares of the company, representing a stake of 13.97% in the Chinese automaker. That stake is currently worth just under $4 billion.
Buffett’s ongoing share sales have weighed on BYD’s stock price in recent months, but the stock is still vastly outperforming electric vehicle peers like Nio, XPeng, and Tesla. The strength can be attributed to the company’s fast growth and its ability to sidestep production slowdowns related to recent waves of COVID-19 infections.
BYD shares fell about 1% in Monday afternoon trades.