Buffett Sells BYD Shares for the First Time in 14 Years, Reducing Stake by 0.12%P

Warren Buffett [Photo by AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] Warren Buffett's investment company Berkshire Hathaway has been confirmed to have sold shares of the Chinese electric vehicle company BYD for the first time.

Bloomberg News reported on the 30th (local time), citing a Berkshire report submitted to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that as of the 24th, Berkshire's stake in BYD decreased from 20.04% to 19.92%. Berkshire sold approximately 1.33 million BYD shares at an average price of 277.10 Hong Kong dollars (about 47,661 KRW), realizing a profit of 47 million USD (about 63.45 billion KRW).

Buffett first invested 230 million USD in BYD in 2008, and this is the first time he has sold shares. The current value of Buffett's stake in BYD exceeds 8 billion USD (about 10.797 trillion KRW).

Kerry Go, Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Camet Capital Partners based in Singapore, analyzed that BYD's stock price has risen significantly over the past three years and this appears to be a profit-taking move. BYD's stock price listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange rose 423% in 2020 and increased an additional 31% last year. This year, it has recorded a 2% decline.

BYD announced on the 29th that its net profit for the first half of this year was 3.6 billion yuan (about 7 trillion KRW), an increase of 206.2% compared to the same period last year. First-half sales reached 150.6 billion yuan, up 65.7% year-on-year. First-half sales volume increased by 215% to 641,350 units, surpassing Tesla (564,000 units) to become the world's number one. Bloomberg Intelligence expects BYD's sales volume this year to reach between 1.5 million and 2 million units.

BYD continues to grow with a vertically integrated strategy producing not only automobiles but also semiconductors and batteries. Currently, BYD has grown into the world's third-largest battery manufacturer after CATL and LG Energy Solution, holding a 14% share of the global battery market.

CIO Go said it is difficult to predict Buffett's possibility of further sales but analyzed that Berkshire likely did not dispose of BYD shares due to a negative view on Chinese investments. Franklin Tang, an analyst at Excel Investment Hong Kong, said this could shake the investment sentiment of many institutional investors.

Bloomberg reported that Buffett had gradually disposed of Chinese company stocks in the past, noting that in 2007 he sold shares of China Petrochemical (PetroChina) at least seven times over three months.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.