Warren Buffett has upped his stakes in Japan and wants to buy more stocks and get involved in big deals.
Berkshire Hathaway owns about 7.4 percent of five major Japanese companies, Buffett told Nikkei.
Originally, Berkshire had spent the equivalent of around 5.5 billion euros to take a five percent stake in the company.
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Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway has increased its stakes in five Japanese companies and plans to further increase its stakes and partner for big deals, Japanese media outlet Nikkei reported in two reports on Tuesday.
The famous investor’s conglomerate now owns about 7.4 percent of Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo, Buffett told the newspaper. The total value of the five positions should amount to the equivalent of around 12.8 billion euros.
“We’re very proud of it,” Buffett told Nikkei of the investments. The 92-year-old billionaire has hinted that his company could merge with one or more of Japan’s top five trading houses in the coming months and years.
Berkshire originally spent the equivalent of about 5.5 billion euros
“We don’t think it’s impossible that at some point in the future we’ll work with them on any particular deal,” Buffett said. “We’d appreciate if one of those five would come up to us at some point and say, ‘We’re thinking of something very big thing to do or we’re going to buy something and we’d like to have a partner or whatever.’”
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Berkshire originally spent the equivalent of about $5.5 billion to acquire a 5 percent stake in each of the five Japanese companies and first announced those positions in August 2020. Until last November, Berkshire raised his bets on the “sogo shosha“ to 6.2 to 6.8 percent, which means that it had invested a total of about ten billion euros in these companies at that point.
The five stocks rose between 2.1 percent (Mitsubishi) and 4.6 percent (Marubeni) on Tuesday as investors welcomed Buffett’s vote of confidence. Since Buffett announced his investments in these companies, they’ve grown an average of 121 percent.
US-China geopolitical tensions were “a consideration” in stock sales
Buffett also spoke to Nikkei about Berkshire’s unusual bet on Taiwan Semiconductor. The investor’s company acquired a stake in Taiwan Semiconductor worth the equivalent of 3.7 billion euros in the third quarter of last year and reduced this stake by 86 percent in the following three months.
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US-China geopolitical tensions over Taiwan were “a consideration” in stock sales, and Berkshire found better places to deploy its capital, according to Buffett.
Those familiar with the investor will not be surprised that his company has increased its bets on Japan. Berkshire recently announced plans to issue yen-denominated bonds to help hedge against a fall in the yen against the dollar and a dollar-denominated depreciation of its Japanese stocks.
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