Berkshire Hathaway (hereafter Berkshire), led by world-renowned investor Warren Buffett, 95, has bought Alphabet, Google's parent company, shares worth tens of trillions of won.
According to Berkshire's holdings report (Form 13F) filed on the 14th local time, Berkshire reported that as of the end of September it held Alphabet shares worth $4.33 billion (about 6.3 trillion won). That is the 10th-largest position among Berkshire's stock holdings.
Market attention is focusing on Berkshire as it newly added Alphabet, after having taken a cautious stance on tech stocks other than Apple.
On Wall Street, attention is on remarks by Buffett and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, who died in 2023, that they regretted missing an opportunity to invest in Google in the past. At the 2017 annual shareholders meeting, Munger said, "If you asked what the worst mistake we made in the tech sector was, I think it was failing to recognize Google."
At the time, Chair Buffett also said that people who wrote Google's investment memorandum had come to see them, adding, "We had every chance to ask questions and grasp Google, but we missed it," expressing regret.
CNBC reported that it may have been Portfolio Manager Todd Combs or Ted Weschler at Berkshire, not Buffett, who led the Alphabet investment. They tend to be proactive in tech stocks and previously led Berkshire's purchase of Amazon equity in 2019.
So far this year, Alphabet's share price has surged 46% on the back of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
Meanwhile, Berkshire also cut its Apple equity by 15% in the third quarter. Even after the sale, however, the value of its Apple holdings stood at $60.7 billion (about 88 trillion won), still ranking No. 1 in valuation among Berkshire's publicly listed stock investments.
Berkshire's equity in Bank of America (BOA) also fell 6%, shrinking to about $30 billion.
At the annual shareholders meeting in May, Chair Buffett said he plans to retire at the end of 2025. After Buffett retires, Berkshire will be led by Vice Chairman Greg Abel, who has been designated as successor.