Berkshire Hathaway, headed by the world’s 5th richest person, has reduced its stake in the Chinese automaker BYD once again.
The holding company, led by Warren Buffett, with Charlie Munger as vice chairman, currently has a 9.87% stake in BYD. These shares are valued at just over US$3 billion (AU$4.48 billion).
Berkshire Hathaway, which also has significant stakes in Kraft Heinz Company, American Express, The Coca-Cola Company and Apple, sold 1.96 million shares per regulatory filing this month, worth 58 ,9 million US dollars (87.96 million Australian dollars).
“We don’t want to compete with Elon on a lot of things,” Buffett said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting over the weekend, when asked if Buffett believes the Tesla CEO overestimates himself. body or not.
“We don’t want to fail that much,” added Mr Munger, in comments reported by Business Insiderinstead, speculate that the move could be for profit and redeploy this elsewhere.
Berkshire Hathaway first invested in BYD in 2008, buying 225 million shares for $232 million, and the company has a 21% stake at the end of 2021.
BYD already supplies batteries to Tesla, among other companies.
The Chinese carmaker, founded in 1995 as a battery manufacturer, has seen rapid growth.
Not only has it become a major player in its home market of China, but it has also begun exporting its products widely globally including Australia and Europe.
It surpass Volkswagen was China’s best-selling car brand in the first quarter of 2023 and accounted for about 40% of sales of “new energy vehicles” – plug-in hybrids and battery-powered vehicles – in that market.
While Tesla will still sell the most electric vehicles of any automaker globally in 2022, BYD is believed to be in second place ahead of SAIC Motor, Volkswagen Group and Geely.
