Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway sold another $25.78 million worth of BYD shares last week, slashing its total stake in Chinese electric vehicle-maker by more than 61% since 2022.
The investment group sold 820,500 Hong Kong-listed shares of BYD for HK$201.73 million, a stock exchange filing showed.
The sale on October 25 lowered Berkshire’s holdings in BYD’s issued H-shares to 7.98% from 8.05%. That’s down from a 20.49% stake Berkshire had in the carmaker’s H shares when it began selling off its holdings since late August 2022.
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The investment mogul has since offloaded BYD shares over several rounds, with one of the largest sales being in November 2022, of shares worth $145.38 million.
Berkshire’s latest stake sale in BYD came on the heels of the carmaker’s financial results this week, in which it reported its highest-ever quarterly profit of $1.42 billion for Q3 2023.
The results pointed to BYD’s continuing dominance of the world’s largest electric vehicle market, despite increasing domestic competition and decreasing global demand of EVs. The EV-maker has also accelerated its expansion in major EV markets like Europe and Japan.
Its reach in major automobile markets of the US and India remains limited, however, amid Beijing’s tense geopolitical ties with Washington and New Delhi.
Berkshire’s sale of the majority of its stake in BYD has also come at a time of increased China-US rivalry in technology and trade.
- Reuters, with additional inputs from Vishakha Saxena
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