By Investing.com — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) has offloaded a further tranche of shares in Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), bringing the amount the conglomerate has garnered from stake sales since July up to roughly $9 billion.
According to a regulatory filing on Tuesday, Berkshire sold around 21 million shares between Sept. 20 and Sept. 24, netting the firm about $863 million. It had sold approximately 45.6 million shares in multiple other rounds of sales earlier this month.
The latest share sale brings Berkshire’s holdings in Bank of America down to 10.5%, worth about $32.13 billion, according to Reuters calculations.
At that level, Berkshire, which remains Bank of America’s biggest shareholder, will have to continue reporting its interest regularly. Should its holdings fall below 10%, it will no longer be required to do so. Analysts cited by Reuters have suggested that Berkshire may be attempting to bring its stake down below the threshold to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
Buffett, 94, has not publicly explained why Berkshire has been ratcheting down its interest in Bank of America, although he has praised the company in the past. The billionaire investor first purchased $5 billion in preferred stock and warrants in the lender in 2011. He converted that stake into common shares several years later after Bank of America announced an uptick in its dividend.
When recently asked about Berkshire divestitures, Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said that he is not in a position to speak to Buffett about the matter.
“I don’t know what exactly he is doing because frankly we can’t ask,” Moynihan said at a financial conference in New York. However, he described Buffett as a “great” investor for the bank.
Shares in Bank of America were hovering just above the flatline in premarket US trading on Wednesday.
(Reuters contributed reporting.)
