Berkshire Hathaway Sold Nearly All Its Verizon Stake in the First Quarter

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Berkshire Hathaway

bought stakes in

Citigroup
,

Paramount Global
,
and

Markel

in the first quarter, while nearly eliminating an interest in

Verizon

Communications, according to a filing late Monday.

Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK.A, BRK.B) also added substantially to its stake in

Chevron

(CVX) and took sizable stakes in

Occidental Petroleum

(OXY) and HP (HPQ). Berkshire also boosted its holding in

Activision Blizzard

(ATVI).

The Chevron, Occidental, Activision, and HP purchases have already been disclosed through different sources, including separate regulatory filings, Berkshire’s first-quarter 10-Q report, and by CEO Warren Buffett at Berkshire’s annual meeting on April 30.

The new information in Monday’s filing is that Berkshire held 55 million shares of Citigroup (C) on March 31, a stake now worth $2.6 billion. Berkshire owns 69 million shares of Paramount Global (PARA), the media company, now worth about $1.9 billion.

Berkshire’s stake in Paramount Global, which changed its name from ViacomCBS earlier this year, now totals 10.6%. Berkshire owned 69 million shares on March 31, and there are a total of 649 million class A and B shares of Paramount outstanding, based on the company’s latest 10-Q report as of April 28.

Berkshire eliminated nearly all of a large stake in Verizon Communications (VZ) in the quarter. The company held just 1.4 million shares of Verizon on March 31, down from almost 159 million shares on Dec. 31. Berkshire’s stake in Verizon totaled about $8 billion prior to the first-quarter sale.

Barron’s wrote earlier in May that Berkshire likely sold all or most of the Verizon stake based on our analysis of the company’s first-quarter 10-Q report.

Berkshire also bought a stake of about 419,000 shares of the insurer Markel (MKL), worth about $555 million.

Berkshire bought $51 billion of stocks in the first quarter, more than in any other three-month period in its history. Most of its buying activity came in early March, when the stock market tumbled.

Berkshire held a stake in Chevron totaling 159 million shares on March 31, which is now worth $27.5 billion. It held 104.5 million shares of HP and 137 million shares of Occidental on March 31. Berkshire has since purchased more of those two stocks. It now holds 143 million shares of Occidental, worth $9.7 billion, and 121 million shares of HP, worth $4.5 billion.

Write to Andrew Bary at [email protected]

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