Warren Buffett, the world’s tenth richest man, and Berkshire Hathaway reduced their stake in Apple to $69.9 billion in the third quarter, bringing their cash holdings to a record $325.2 billion, while operating profit of the business collapsed.
In its quarterly report released Saturday, Berkshire said it sold about 100 million Apple shares, confirming that its big bet for years is no longer what it used to be. In just over a year, Buffett sold nearly two-thirds of his stake in the tech company, which at its peak in 2023 represented $178 billion of the company’s stock portfolio.
Furthermore, the large industrial conglomerate also revealed this Saturday that it had reduced several billion dollars of Bank of America shares.
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The sales of the tech company’s shares represent a sea change for Buffett, who in 2022 described Apple as one of Berkshire’s “big four,” which account for most of the company’s value.
At the company’s shareholder meeting in May, he described the iPhone maker as “an even better company” than Coca-Cola and American Express, two of Berkshire’s longtime holdings. “Unless something dramatic really changes the capital allocation strategy, Apple will be our largest investment,” Buffett told shareholders at the time.
