By Andrew Bary

The mutual-fund industry will lose its biggest fan of Berkshire Hathaway with the retirement of Fidelity Contrafund manager Will Danoff at the end of 2026 after 35 years at its helm.

Danoff's $176 billion fund probably was the single largest holder of Berkshire among actively managed mutual funds. Contrafund's stake in Berkshire is now worth about $10 billion, Barron's calculates. It consists almost entirely of Berkshire's supervoting Class A stock -- some 14,000 Class A shares, based on Nov. 30 holdings.

Berkshire represented 6% of Contrafund's assets at year-end, making it tied for the fund's fourth largest holding along with Amazon.com and behind Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Alphabet. Berkshire is a big overweight for Contrafund since the stock represents about 1.5% of the S&P 500.

Danoff, 65, has been a longtime Berkshire holder and has said that he favored Berkshire as "ballast" in his technology-dominated fund.

Danoff is unusual at Fidelity and the fund industry. Berkshire is significantly underweighted in mutual-fund portfolios and among active managers generally.

Danoff's retirement raises the question of whether Contrafund current co-managers, Asher Anolic and Jason Weiner, who will take over the fund at the end of 2026, will sell the Berkshire stock. Contrafund reduced the Berkshire stake in 2025 by 25% in the second half of 2025.

Berkshire's Class A stock was down 1.9% Tuesday to around $713,000 as it continues to lag the S&P 500 this year. The stock is down 4% against a 2% gain in the index.

Many managers don't like that Berkshire doesn't offer access to its top executives, and that it doesn't hold quarterly conference calls after earnings or pay a dividend.

A retirement-oriented version of Contrafund run by Danoff held another 2,950 or so Berkshire Class A shares worth over $2 billion.

Danoff is a rarity inside Fidelity with his strong affinity for Berkshire.

The firm is the second largest holder of Berkshire's Class A stock behind only Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett with some 27,000 Class A shares worth about $19 billion, or roughly 5% of the Class A stock and 2% in the conglomerate, Bloomberg data show.

The bulk of the Berkshire overall float is in its Class B shares. An estimated 65% of the Fidelity Berkshire stake is held by Danoff-run funds.

Danoff, whose coming retirement was confirmed by Fidelity Tuesday, had a market-beating record dating to when he took over the fund in 1990. Contrafund returned 14.1% annually over the span, against 11.3% for the S&P 500 index.

Berkshire is an anomaly in the growth-oriented Contrafund portfolio. Berkshire is one of the largest value stocks in the market.

Danoff told Barron's in a D ecember profile that he liked Berkshire in part because of his affinity for strong, owner-operated companies whose leaders hold sizable equity stakes.

He told Bloomberg in 2018: "I like best-of-breed companies. I like founder-led companies. And Warren Buffett is still quite entrepreneurial. He's not for everyone, but he's a very rational man and he's the greatest investor of probably this century. With all my tech holdings, this is a very good counterbalance and some ballast for the big fund."

Berkshire board member and fund manager Chris Davis has talked about the lack of interest in Berkshire among active managers despite Buffett's extraordinary record. Many managers don't want to outsource their investments -- even to arguably the greatest investor of all time.

Danoff had no such qualms and reaped the benefits.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 27, 2026 17:42 ET (22:42 GMT)

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