Berkshire Hathaway Director's Firm Sold Almost 30% of Its Berkshire Stake

Dow Jones
Aug 12

The investment firm run by Berkshire Hathaway director Chris Davis sold nearly 30% of its stake in Warren Buffett’s company during the second quarter, taking advantage of the run-up in the share price.

Davis Selected Advisers, which runs the Davis New York Venture Fund, reduced its stake in Berkshire Hathaway to 1,434 shares class A equivalent (with Class B shares converted to an economically equivalent amount of Class A stock) on June 30 from more than 2,000 shares on March 31, according to Barron’s analysis of a new regulatory filing that details the fund’s U.S.-listed holdings. Davis Selected Advisors filed the 13-F form with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.

Berkshire Hathaway remains the firm’s third-largest holding by dollar value at about $1 billion, behind only Capital One Financial and Meta Platforms. The firm’s 13-F shows about $22 billion in total equity investments.

Berkshire Hathaway still represents about 5% of the fund’s holdings, considerably more than the company’s weighting in the S&P 500 index. Davis Selected Advisors also initiated a stake in Nvidia in the second quarter, and was a buyer of UnitedHealth Group, U.S. Bancorp, Taiwan Semiconductor, and MGM Resorts International.

Chris Davis, a value oriented investor, is the chairman and portfolio manager of Davis Selected Advisors.

In a statement to Barron’s, Davis said that he wasn’t involved in the decision to sell the Berkshire stock.

“As a Director of Berkshire, Chris has recused himself from the firm’s investment decisions regarding the stock and has not changed his opinion of Berkshire or the stock,” Davis said. Investment decisions involving Berkshire stock are made by portfolio managers at the firm without consultation or input from him, Davis added.

Berkshire Hathaway shares were strong during the early part of the second quarter, with the class A shares rising to a record $809,350 on May 2, the day before the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting when Buffett surprised shareholders by saying that he would step down as CEO at year-end while remaining chairman of the board.

The stock has since sold off about 13% to around $700,000. The stock traded at about $762,000 on average in the second quarter, Bloomberg data show.

Davis personally owns 36 class A shares worth about $25 million and Class B shares worth another $1 million, according to the Berkshire Hathaway 2025 proxy. Davis has not sold any of those shares.

In the statement to Barron’s, Davis added: “Mr. Davis’s personal holdings of Berkshire Hathaway remain unchanged, and he has not sold—and will not sell—a single share for as long as he serves on the company’s board of directors.”

The sales by Davis’s firm are notable since it has been a longtime Berkshire Hathaway holder, and Chris Davis one of the company’s biggest champions in the investment community.

He has lauded the company’s candor, transparency and culture, saying that insiders know little more than outsiders about Berkshire Hathaway. He also has wondered why more endowments and foundations don’t own the stock given its characteristics of financial strength, diversified earnings, and management integrity.

“The stewardship culture is really the essential value system of Berkshire Hathaway, and a big part of the board is just being watchdogs, vigilant, promoting, nurturing, doing anything we can not to interfere with that culture and to promote it,” Davis said in an interview with Barron’s editor Andy Serwer in January.

Davis, 59, has said he has attended Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings every year since 1989, when he was around 23, and read every annual report and Buffett shareholder letter over that period.

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