The BYD logo at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, on April 25.Tingshu Wang/Reuters
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK-B-N has trimmed its stake in China’s BYD, which surpassed Tesla last year as the world’s largest seller of electric vehicles.
Berkshire recently sold 1.3 million Hong Kong-listed BYD shares for HK$310.5-million ($39.8-million), according to a filing on Monday with the Hong Kong stock exchange. That reduced its stake in BYD’s issued H-shares to 6.90 per cent from 7.02 per cent.
Buffett’s company began investing in Shenzhen-based BYD in 2008, when it paid $230-million for about 225 million shares, then equal to a 10 per cent stake.
It began selling shares in 2022, after BYD’s share price had risen more than 20-fold.
The share price has fallen about 30 per cent since peaking in June 2022. Tesla dethroned BYD and reclaimed its status as the largest electric vehicle seller in April.
Berkshire’s investment in BYD the brainchild of Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s late vice chairman.
Munger said at the 2023 annual meeting of publishing and software company Daily Journal that he had “never helped do anything at Berkshire that was as good as BYD.”
Berkshire invests mainly in the United States.
Buffett said at the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate’s annual meeting last month that it will keep doing so, but that BYD was a rewarding exception.
“Charlie twice has pounded the table with me and just said, you know, ‘Buy, buy, buy,’” Buffett told shareholders. “BYD was one of them, and Costco was the other … He was right, big time, in both companies.”