Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, offloaded about 30.4 million shares from its investment in Paramount Global.
The fourth-quarter move, disclosed Wednesday, marked a 32% decrease from the approximately 93.7 million the conglomerate held at the end of the prior quarter ending September 30, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showed.
Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in Paramount stood at over 63.3 million shares, the Wednesday filing said. It pegged their value at $936.5 million.
"@WarrenBuffett’s Berkshire Hathaway massively cuts its stake in @paramountco; just yesterday @FoxBusiness reported Shari Redstone was having trouble unloading her stake in $PARA’s holding company, National Amusements, with bidders balking at her premium," FOX Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino said Wednesday on X. "Having Buffett in the stock was a big selling point for $PARA; his exciting (⅓ cut) makes its sale more difficult, analysts say."
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Reports of National Amusements CEO Shari Redstone engaging in talks about potential deals to offload her stake first surfaced last year. There has been interest in both her stake and Paramount in recent months.
FOX Business reached out to Paramount and National Amusements for comment.
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The reduction in its Paramount stake wasn’t the only change Berkshire Hathaway made in the final quarter of 2023. Some investments that saw changes included HP Inc., Apple, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum Corp, with the conglomerate selling some shares of the first two and acquiring more of the last, according to the filing.
Berkshire Hathaway said its stakes in various companies were worth nearly $347.4 billion combined. That was nearly 11% higher than in the third-quarter.
The conglomerate, which Buffett has helmed for decades, had a value of $870.18 billion on a market capitalization basis as of Thursday.
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