Berkshire Hathaway Reduces Holding in BYD, Sells 1.55M Listed Shares

Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company owned by Warren Buffett, has sold 1.55 million Hong Kong-listed shares of electric vehicle maker BYD for HK$351.81 million (US$44.85 million), a stock exchange filing showed.

The sale lowered Berkshire's holdings in BYD's issued H-shares to 12.9 per cent on Jan 27, down from 13.04 per cent, the filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed on Thursday.

Berkshire, which started selling the BYD shares in late August, has accumulatively reduced its holding by more than a third.

Buffett's company acquired 225 million BYD shares in 2008, giving it a 7.73 per cent stake, equal to the 20.49 per cent stake in H shares, according to BYD's annual report.

BYD was the world's largest plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles maker in 2022, with a total of 1.86 million cars sold, growing faster than Tesla .

BYD Auto Co., Ltd. is the automotive subsidiary of the publicly-listed Chinese multinational manufacturer BYD Company, headquartered in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China. It was founded in January 2003, following BYD Company's acquisition of Qinchuan Automobile Company in 2002. The company produces passenger cars, buses, trucks, electric bicycles, forklifts, and rechargeable batteries. The current model range of automobiles includes battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and the company also produced petrol engine vehicles up until March 2022.