Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has more than halved its stake in Chinese electric car stock BYD through successive sales over the last 18 months, filings show. The latest share sale was dated Oct. 25, just days before BYD released record quarterly earnings that prompted a few analysts to raise their price targets. “The auto segment achieved Rmb9.4bn ($1.28 billion) net profit during the quarter, suggesting Rmb11.4k net profit per car,” Paul Gong, head of China auto at UBS Global Research, said in an Oct. 30 note. “This marks a new historical high since the company focused on [new energy vehicle] sales only in early 2022, likely supported by both economies of scale, accelerating export sales and declining lithium prices,” Gong said. “BYD remains our most favored EV name under coverage,” he added. UBS raised its price target to 360 Hong Kong dollars ($46) a share. That’s up nearly 50% from where BYD shares closed Friday. In its latest offloading of BYD, Berkshire had sold its shares for an average of 245.86 Hong Kong dollars, according to a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange . Berkshire now owns less than 8% of BYD. It’s unclear why Buffett is pulling back on the investment. The issue did not come up during a shareholders meeting in May. During a live CNBC interview in April, Buffett would only say BYD is an “extraordinary company” being run by an “extraordinary person,” but ” I think that we’ll find things to do with the money that I’ll feel better about. ” Wang Chuanfu, trained as a chemist, founded BYD back in 1995. Over the decades, the company has turned into an auto industry giant as China and other countries push for electrification of cars. BYD also produces hybrid cars. But in the third quarter, it produced several thousand more purely battery-powered passenger cars than Tesla did during that time, according to CNBC calculations of public data. Those latest quarterly results for Tesla also turned out to be a disappointment for investors. Shares…
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