Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reduced the number of stocks in its portfolio in the third quarter, exiting stakes in General Motors Co. and Activision Blizzard Inc. while trimming bets on companies including HP Inc.
The conglomerate’s retreat from Activision completes Buffett’s arbitrage play amid the video-game maker’s prolonged effort to merge with Microsoft Corp., which ran into antitrust scrutiny before the deal was completed in October.
All together, Berkshire exited stakes in seven companies, not including the restructuring of its investment in Liberty Media Corp. and related entities. The value of its disclosed investments decreased 10% from the previous quarter to $312.8 billion.
The conglomerate said it had omitted some data from the filing that was reported confidentially to regulators, and it’s unclear whether the information withheld related to a new or existing position. The Securities and Exchange Commission sometimes allows companies to withhold information from the public to limit copycat investing while a firm is building or cutting a position.
Berkshire has been a net seller of equities throughout 2023, pocketing about $23.6 billion from stock sales after purchases in the first nine months of this year. Those equity sales have contributed to a high-class problem for the conglomerate: more money than it can easily put to work. Much of the hoard has ended up in short-dated Treasuries, helping Berkshire rack up a record $157 billion in cash.
Earlier this year, Buffett broke with his typical strategy of holding on for the long-term by revealing he had abruptly rotated out of a position in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. The billionaire chalked up the decision to concerns over political risk in Taiwan, even as he lauded the chipmaker as a “fabulous enterprise.”
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There have been some other changes to Berkshire’s equities portfolio this year, with the conglomerate previously exiting U.S. Bancorp and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. even as it placed a wager on Capital One Financial Corp. amid a tumultuous period for the sector.
--With assistance from Bei Hu.
(Updates with details on confidential treatment in the fourth paragraph.)
