(Bloomberg) Berkshire Hathaway Inc. snapped up about $41 billion worth of other companies’ shares in the first quarter of the year.
The net acquisitions by Berkshire in the first quarter included boosts to Chevron Corp. which became one of the conglomerate’s top four holdings. Berkshire also said it holds around a 9.5% stake in Activision Blizzard stock.
Other stock additions included Occidental Petroleum. The company also struck a deal to acquire Alleghany Corp for $11.6 billion in the first quarter.
The stock additions by Berkshire are a shift of tone by owner Warren Buffet, who has been complaining about high company valuations. Competition from private equity firms has also posed a challenge to the conglomerate’s asset allocations.
Buffet noted, during the meeting with the shareholders in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday, that the company finds a lot of challenges finding new ideas. He said that any good deal “has to be sizable now.”
The latest buys are the most significant for Berkshire in a quarter since 2008. The purchases reduced Berkshire’s cash holdings to end the quarter at $106 billion, the lowest since the third quarter of 2018.
The huge acquisitions in the first quarter slowed Berkshire’s share buyback to just $3.2 billion in the first quarter, from $6.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021. The repurchases were the lowest since the first quarter of 2020.
BRK.A: NYSE is down -3.07%
