In Abel’s second full quarter since succeeding Chairman Warren Buffett as chief executive officer, Berkshire added 17.5 million Delta shares, lifting the value of its stake to $5.37 billion at the end of June, according to a filing Friday. Alphabet is now the conglomerate’s third-biggest holding, worth $37.8 billion at midyear, after Abel added 48.1 million shares.
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Berkshire also spent about $4.5 billion to repurchase its own stock in the period while adding a net of almost $20 billion of other equities, the company said last week when it reported second-quarter results. It had $365.5 billion of cash at midyear, down from a record $397 billion at the end of March.
After years of relatively subdued deal activity under Buffett, who often bemoaned lofty market valuations, Abel oversaw back-to-back multibillion-dollar transactions in the period.
He spent $6.8 billion to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home Corp., a typical value bet, while also handing $10 billion to Alphabet to support its investments related to artificial intelligence, a new area for the conglomerate. The Taylor Morrison transaction was completed last month.
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Berkshire also bought more shares of homebuilder Lennar Corp. in the second quarter, bringing its holding to about $1.21 billion.
The conglomerate continued to pare its stake in Bank of America Corp. and now owns 6.8% of the US lender’s shares.
Meanwhile, the Gates Foundation sold almost 2.4 million Berkshire Class B shares, reducing its stake to $7.35 billion at the end of the quarter, according to a separate filing Friday. Last month, Buffett indicated that he didn’t plan to make more gifts to the philanthropy as co-founder Bill Gates faces increased scrutiny over his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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