Berkshire’s Japanese Stock Positions Top $30 Billion

Source Credit : CNBC

The total value of the five Japanese “trading houses” in Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio has topped $30 billion in recent weeks, and Warren Buffett is apparently still buying.



Berkshire had already been building its positions for twelve months when Buffett initially revealed the stakes of around 5% each on August 30, 2020, his 90th birthday.

At that time, the total value of the five positions was roughly $6.3 billion.

It’s up 392% to $31.0 billion today, with Berkshire buying more over the years and the stocks soaring between 227% and 551%.

The total could be even higher because some additional purchases may not have been disclosed yet.

We know Warren Buffett has been adding to what was already a tremendously successful investment, with public acknowledgements recently that two of the stakes have gone above 10%.



One of the two, Mitsui, detailed this week exactly how many shares Berkshire owns.

In a news release Thursday, the company relays word from Berkshire that its National Indemnity subsidiary owned 292,044,900 shares as of September 30.

At Friday’s close, they’re valued at around $7.1 billion.

It’s a 10.1% stake, making Nation Indemnity its biggest shareholder.

It’s also an increase of 2.3% from the 285,401,400 shares, a 9.7% stake, reported in March.

This week’s news release is a follow-up to one issued two weeks ago by Mitsui in which it said it had been “informed” by Berkshire that “they now hold 10% or more of the voting rights in Mitsui,” but had not been told the exact number of shares Berkshire owned.

In late August, Mitsubishi reported it had been told by Berkshire that its holding had increased to 10.2% from 9.7% in March.