Berkshire Hathaway Buys Honeywell Shares
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRKA - news), Warren Buffett's holding company and investment vehicle, took a stake in diversified manufacturer Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE:HON - news) in the second quarter, but sold shares in banking companies Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C - news), SunTrust Banks Inc. (NYSE:STI - news), U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB - news) and Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC - news).
Berkshire bought 2.25 million Honeywell shares, worth about $83 million, in the second quarter, according to Berkshire's latest filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, posted late on Tuesday.
Berkshire now owns about 0.3 percent of Honeywell, whose $43 billion takeover by General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - news) was blocked by European regulators in July.
The new stake is only a small part of the $29 billion or so that Berkshire holds in U.S. stocks.
Those holdings are largely controlled by Buffett, known as the 'Sage of Omaha' for his astute investing. Buffett, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, is the world's second-richest man behind Microsoft's Bill Gates, with a personal fortune of about $32 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Apart from Honeywell, Berkshire bought no other significant chunks of shares in the quarter, according to the filing. That is in line with Buffett's often-stated preference for buying whole companies rather than stakes. Berkshire has bought eight other companies in the past year or so, and has three more deals awaiting completion.
Berkshire sold shares in several companies in the quarter, according to the filing, mostly reducing stakes in U.S. banks. It also sold 220,000 shares in defense contractor General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE:GD - news), worth about $18 million.
Berkshire sold about 880,000 shares of Citigroup, the world's No. 1 financial services provider, reducing its holding to about 2.91 million shares, worth about $140 million.
It halved its holding in U.S. Bancorp to 6.28 million shares from about 13.92 million at the end of the first quarter, leaving Berkshire with a 0.3 percent stake in the bank, worth about $156 million.
Berkshire sold about 840,000 shares of bank group SunTrust, reducing its holding to about 5.8 million shares, worth about $404 million. SunTrust recently lost out in its bid to take over rival bank Wachovia Corp. (NYSE:WB - news).
Buffett's company also reduced its stake in Wells Fargo, the U.S. No. 4 bank. It sold about 1.8 million Wells Fargo shares in the quarter, cutting its holding to about 53.3 million shares, worth about $2.5 billion.
Berkshire's 3 percent stake in Wells Fargo is one of Buffett's largest shareholdings. Buffett's other core stakes include 11 percent of charge card giant American Express Co. (NYSE:AXP - news), 8 percent of soft-drink maker Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:KO - news), 9 percent of consumer goods maker Gillette Co. (NYSE:G - news). and 18 percent of newspaper publisher The Washington Post Co. (NYSE:WPO - news).
Those stakes were unchanged in the quarter.
Berkshire's shares rose 0.29 percent to $69,400 on the New York Stock Exchange, Honeywell shares rose 1.69 percent to $37.30. |
