Berkshire Hathaway exits the giants of their respective industries, Procter & Gamble and General Motors in efforts to build up cash reserves. As announced in its regulatory filing on Tuesday it has also trimmed its stake in the E-commerce giant Amazon to help bolster the cash pile to a record $157.2 billion.
In the document detailing its US holdings, Berkshire reported it had no holdings in General Motors and P&G as of Sept 30. This move comes after it reported stakes of $848 million & $48 million, respectively by the end of second quarter. They also reduced their stake in Amazon by almost 5%.
Adding to that, Berkshire also appears to have shed its $621 million stake in Celanese, a materials company, and has taken a new position of $8 million in Atlanta Braves Holding, the holding company of The Battery Atlanta and a baseball team.
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Filing Details
Tuesday’s filing listed most of the investments of the Omaha and Nebraska-based portfolio, totalling to $318.6 billion as of 30th September. Moreover, the third quarter remained a down period for Berkshire as Apple, one of its biggest holdings, lost 12% of its value, and sold $7 billion of its stakes including its big investments in Chevron.
The exits from Procter & Gamble and General Motors were not their only stake reduction in 2023, as Berkshire has sold almost $23.6 billion more stocks than it had bought throughout the year.
The net sale of stakes in major US holdings resulted in Berkshire reporting a record cash pile of $156.8 billion, about the same size as its stake in Apple.
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Buffet’s Investment
Berkshire’s regulatory filing of Tuesday doesn’t shed any light on the investments made by Warren Buffet himself, his portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs and the reasons behind each investment decision.
Though, historically speaking most of the larger investment decisions are taken by Buffet himself, which is why investors usually try to copy Berkshire’s portfolio considering Buffet’s as an investor.
Berkshire has not disclosed some of its holdings and has even requested Securities and Exchange Commission for the confidential treatment. It usually asks for this type of treatment for larger investments, as in the case of Exxon Mobil and IBM which it held previously.
Warren Buffet aged 93, considered to be the biggest and most influential investor of all times has been running Berkshire Hathaway since 1965, that owns dozens of businesses including BNSF railroad, large and popular consumer brands and industrial companies, and Geico car insurers.
