Billionaire Buffett again sells BofA shares worth about $845 million

Billionaire Buffett again sells BofA shares worth about $845 million

(Reuters) – Billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has once again cut its stake in Bank of America with a share sale worth roughly $845 million, a regulatory filing showed on Friday.

The conglomerate run by one of the world’s most revered investors has offloaded shares worth more than a combined $6 billion in the second largest U.S. bank in seven rounds of share sales since July.

Berkshire, BofA’s top shareholder, disclosed that it had sold roughly 21.1 million shares of the bank between Aug. 28 and Aug. 30.

Buffett started investing in the bank in 2011 when Berkshire bought $5 billion of preferred stock. That purchase signaled his confidence in CEO Brian Moynihan’s ability to restore the lender to health following the 2008 financial crisis.

Buffett, 93, had in April 2023 told CNBC that he liked Moynihan “enormously” and did not want to sell the bank’s stock at the time.

BofA shares have gained 21% so far this year, compared with a 22.6% gain in the S&P 500 Banks Index, which tracks the performance of large-cap banks.

(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)