Warren Buffett's 14-year bet pays off as Berkshire Hathaway cashes in on BYD

Warren Buffett’s firm has sold off more than 11 million shares in the EV maker in last month.
AP

Berkshire Hathaway has cashed in at least $300 million of BYD stock in the past month.
The hedge fund has sold off more than 11 million shares in the Tesla rival since January 3.
Warren Buffett initially invested $232 million in the group in 2008, with his stake now worth $4.7 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway cashed in at least $300 million of stocks in Chinese EV maker BYD last month, as it continues to cut its 14-year holding in Tesla’s main Asian rival.

Warren Buffett’s investment firm announced in a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing that it had sold off 1,554,500 shares in BYD on January 27, dropping its stake in the EV maker from 13.97% to 12.9%.

Those numbers, however, don’t fully capture Berkshire Hathaway’s BYD stock sales over January, because the company only has to file when a transaction changes its percentage stake by a whole number. Data from the filing suggests a total 11,714,858 drop in Berkshire’s BYD shares since its last announcement on January 3.

BYD’s lowest share price within that period was 201.6 Hong Kong Dollars ($25.70), meaning the investment firm has shed at least $301,071,850.60 of its stake in the company. 

Berkshire has been involved in a gradual selloff of its BYD holdings, trimming its stake from 21.07% to the latest reported level of 12.9% in the space of two years. Buffett’s investment firm has held a stake in BYD since 2008.

The current value of Berkshire’s holdings in BYD stands at around $4.7 billion, signalling a sizable gain on its initial investment of $232 million more than 14 years ago. The carmaker represents a small fraction of Berkshire’s total portfolio.

Shares in BYD are up about 30% so far this year on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, while Tesla has jumped more than 67% on the NASDAQ. However, BYD’s losses last year of around 24% was much less severe than Tesla’s 69%.

BYD broke a record for EV sales in China last year, with its 1.9 million deliveries exceeding Tesla’s by 600,000 in the country, as the Shenzhen-based company shrugged off the negative impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns.