Investing.com — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:) has sold off a roughly $900 million tranche of its stake in Bank of America this week, lowering its holdings in America’s second-biggest lender closer to a key reporting threshold.
Berkshire’s stake in Bank of America now stands at 10.8% of outstanding shares, or about $34 billion. Berkshire, which is still one of Bank of America’s largest shareholders, will have to continue reporting its interest regularly as long as its stake is above 10%.
Last week, the Omaha, Nebraska-based group disclosed a sale of around 5.8 million Bank of America shares between Sept. 6 to Sept. 10.
Buffett has not publicly explained why Berkshire has been ratcheting down its stake in Bank of America, although he has praised the company in the past. The billionaire investor first purchased $5 billion in preferred stock and warrants in the lender in 2011. He converted that stake into common shares several years later after Bank of America announced an uptick in its dividend.
According to calculations carried out by Bloomberg News, Berkshire’s proceeds from disposals of Bank of America shares that began in July, as well as dividends earned since 2011, have now surpassed the $14.6 billion in investments the conglomerate has plugged into the lender. The calculations do not include the impact of taxes, Bloomberg noted.
When recently asked about Berkshire divestitures, Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said that he is not in a position to speak to Buffett about the matter.
“I don’t know what exactly he is doing because frankly we can’t ask,” Moynihan said at a financial conference in New York last week. However, he described Buffett as a “great” investor for the bank.
Analysts cited by Reuters suggested that Berkshire may be attempting to bring its holdings down below the 10% threshold to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Once under its control is less than that level, Berkshire could opt to unveil its Bank of America stake more infrequently and potentially only in its quarterly updates, Bloomberg reported.
(Reuters contributed to this report.)
