Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has now cashed in $540 million of HP stock in under a month
Dennis Van Tine/AP
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold another $130 million of HP shares in three days.
- The investor's company has now cashed in about $540 million of the computing stock in under a month.
- Berkshire has cut its stake from 12.3% to 10.2%, meaning it's no longer HP's largest shareholder.
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway jettisoned another $130 million worth of HP stock during the last three trading days, it revealed in a regulatory filing on Monday. It has now cashed in shares of the printer and PC maker worth a total of $540 million in the past month.
The famed investor's company sold 5.1 million shares at prices between $25.56 and $26.16 in its latest transactions. The disposals reduced Berkshire's stake to just under 101 million shares or 10.2%, meaning Vanguard has now replaced it as HP's largest shareholder.
Buffett's conglomerate owned nearly 121 million shares, or 12.3% of HP, before it began selling on September 11. It has slashed its holding by 17% since then.
HP stock jumped to a record intraday high in April 2022 after Berkshire first disclosed its stake. It has tumbled nearly 40% since then to below $16 at Monday's close. Prior to last month, Buffett's company hadn't touched the holding since last April.
The value of Berkshire's position has dropped from a peak of $5 billion to $2.6 billion today, reflecting the sharp decline in HP stock and the conglomerate's flurry of share sales.
Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard in a California garage in 1939, when Buffett — who turned 93 in August — was only 8 years old. The storied hardware company has kept its PC and printer business under the HP Inc name, after spinning off its enterprise division in 2015.
Buffett and his team haven't provided any explanation as to why they're cutting back on HP. They may have turned bearish on the business, or might be freeing up cash to fund other investments. Indeed, Berkshire sold a net $33 billion of stocks in the three quarters to June 30, which helped to bolster its cash pile to a near-record $147 billion in the second quarter.
It's worth highlighting that Berkshire's HP position is small relative to its roughly $350 billion stock portfolio, which includes an estimated $170 billion stake in Apple, a $30 billion stake in Bank of America, and $24 billion stakes in Coca-Cola and American Express. One of Buffett's two deputies, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, may have decided to invest in HP, and might now be working to unwind the wager.
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