Berkshire pads Delta, Alphabet stakes as Abel taps cash pile
· Fortune
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. increased its holdings in Delta Air Lines Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. as Greg Abel began tapping into the company’s massive cash hoard.
In Abel’s second full quarter since succeeding Chairman Warren Buffett as chief executive officer, Berkshire added 17.5 million Delta shares, lifting the value of its stake to $5.37 billion at the end of June, according to a filing Friday. Alphabet is now the conglomerate’s third-biggest holding, worth $37.8 billion at midyear, after Abel added 48.1 million shares.
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Berkshire also spent about $4.5 billion to repurchase its own stock in the period while adding a net of almost $20 billion of other equities, the company said last week when it reported second-quarter results. It had $365.5 billion of cash at midyear, down from a record $397 billion at the end of March.
After years of relatively subdued deal activity under Buffett, who often bemoaned lofty market valuations, Abel oversaw back-to-back multibillion-dollar transactions in the period.
He spent $6.8 billion to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home Corp., a typical value bet, while also handing $10 billion to Alphabet to support its investments related to artificial intelligence, a new area for the conglomerate. The Taylor Morrison transaction was completed last month.
Read More: Berkshire Goes All-In on Housing Bet With Taylor Morrison Deal
Berkshire also bought more shares of homebuilder Lennar Corp. in the second quarter, bringing its holding to about $1.21 billion.
The conglomerate continued to pare its stake in Bank of America Corp. and now owns 6.8% of the US lender’s shares.
Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation sold almost 2.4 million Berkshire Class B shares, reducing its stake to $7.35 billion at the end of the quarter, according to a separate filing Friday. Last month, Buffett indicated that he didn’t plan to make more gifts to the philanthropy as co-founder Bill Gates faces increased scrutiny over his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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