Berkshire Hathaway sells off GE stake, boosts Bank of NY

By Josh Funk
AP Business Writer

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Warren Buffett's company has eliminated its stake in General Electric and boosted its investment in the Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Berkshire Hathaway revealed those moves and several other changes to its U.S. stock portfolio in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

Berkshire didn't list any GE shares in its holdings at the end of June. Previously, it owned 10.6 million shares.

Buffett's Omaha, Nebraska-based company increased its stake in BNY Mellon to 50.2 million shares from 33 million in March.

Besides those big changes, Berkshire adjusted its airline investments by trimming its stakes in American Airlines, Delta and United Continental. Berkshire didn't change its investment in Southwest Airlines.

Many investors follow what Berkshire buys and sells because of Buffett's remarkably successful record over more than five decades. Berkshire officials don't generally comment on the quarterly filings or the reasons for their portfolio moves.

And these quarterly filings don't make clear who made all the investments. Buffett handles the biggest investments in Berkshire's portfolio, such as Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo and IBM. He has said that investments of less than $1 billion are likely to be the work of Berkshire's two other investment managers.

Berkshire also increased its Apple investment to 130.2 million shares, up slightly from 129 million shares in March.

Berkshire also continued reducing its stake in IBM to 54 million shares from 64.6 million in March. Previously, Berkshire held more than 80 million IBM shares, but Buffett said the company hadn't performed as he expected.

Besides investments, Berkshire owns more than 90 companies, including insurance, retail, manufacturing, railroad and candy companies.

Published: Wed, Aug 16, 2017