Billionaire Warren Buffett’s company on Wednesday revealed a new investment in struggling Israeli drugmaker Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd and trimmed its holdings in oil refiner Phillips 66 by selling 35 million shares back to the company for US$3.3 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc disclosed those moves and several other tweaks to its stock holdings in documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Berkshire said it held 18.9 million shares of Teva at the end of the year, worth about US$360 million.
Teva, the world’s No. 1 generic drugmaker, this week detailed a two-year timeline for turning its business around after being hit competition in its core generic business, the loss of patent protection on its multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone and a more than US$30 billion debt load from its acquisition of Allergan’s generics business of Allergan. It said in December last year it planned to cut 14,000 jobs, over one-quarter of its global workforce.
Photo: Bloomberg
Berkshire Hathaway and Phillips 66 said the repurchase will let Buffett’s company reduce its investment below the 10 percent level that triggers additional regulations. That transaction was expected to close on Wednesday.
Buffett said Berkshire plans to continue holding Phillips 66 stock long term. After this, Berkshire will hold 45.7 million shares, or about 9.8 percent of the Houston-based refiner.
“Phillips 66 is a great company with a diversified downstream portfolio and a strong management team,” Buffett said. “This transaction was solely motivated by our desire to eliminate the regulatory requirements that come with ownership levels above 10 percent.”
Berkshire began building its Phillips 66 investment in 2012. Berkshire traded about US$1.4 billion of its Phillips 66 stock for an additive business in 2013. Berkshire resumed buying shares later. Aside from those moves, the biggest changes Berkshire made in its portfolio during the fourth quarter was adding to its Apple Inc investment and continuing to sell off its IBM Corp stake.
Berkshire held 165.3 million Apple shares at the end of last year, up from 134 million at the end of September. Buffett found opportunities to continue buying the iPhone maker even though its shares were selling at premium prices in the fall.
With IBM, Berkshire reported holding a little over 2 million shares. Before last spring, Berkshire held more than 80 million IBM shares.
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
RSS