MW Warren Buffett is buying up stock in this old-school internet registry company

By Tomi Kilgore

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed buying $28.5 million worth of VeriSign shares in 3 sessions to Christmas Eve

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has been busy over the past week buying stock in an internet domain-name registry company, to extend its lead as the company's largest shareholder.

In a Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday, Buffett and Berkshire disclosed that Berkshire spent $28.55 million to buy a total of 143,424 shares of VeriSign Inc. $(VRSN)$ over the three sessions that ended Dec. 24.

In total, over the six sessions to Dec. 24, Berkshire bought 377,736 VeriSign shares for $73.95 million, which implies a weighted-average price for the purchases of $195.78.

That boosted Berkshire's stock in VeriSign to 13,193,349 shares, or 13.7% of the shares outstanding. At Thursday's closing prices, that stake was valued at $2.67 billion.

Berkshire's 13F disclosures of its equity holdings show that it started buying VeriSign stock in the first quarter of 2024, as it held 12,815,613 shares as of March 31. The holding remained unchanged until the recent purchases.

VeriSign's stock rose 0.5% in premarket trading Friday toward an 11-month high, putting the stock on track for a sixth straight gain which would be the longest win streak since the stretch that ended Aug. 1.

VeriSign made it's name during the internet boom of the late-1990s, as it was the go-to place to register a website's domain names. Its domain-names end with dot-com, dot-net, dot-cc and dot-'name.'

The stock went public on Jan. 30, 1998, and closed its first day at a split-adjusted $6.38. It rose 131.7% the rest of that year, then skyrocketed a record 1,191.8% in 1999 before peaking at a pre-internet bubble bursting closing high of $253 on Feb. 29, 2000.

The stock surpassed that high in 2021, with a current record close of $255.93 on Dec. 29 of that year.

The stock closed Thursday 20.8% below that record price, and down 1.6% year to date.

Of the six analysts surveyed by FactSet who cover VeriSign's stock, half are bullish and half are neutral. The average stock price target is $230, or 13.5% above Thursday's closing price.

The FactSet consensus for 2024 earnings per share is for a rise to $7.99 from $7.90 in 2023, and the consensus for 2025 is for growth to $8.55. Sales are expected to rise 4.2% to $1.56 billion in 2024, and then increase 3.2% in 2025 to $1.61 billion.

-Tomi Kilgore

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December 27, 2024 08:28 ET (13:28 GMT)

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