The Berkshire Beat: May 16, 2025

All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!

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Yesterday, Berkshire Hathaway filed its 13F — offering a rare peek behind the curtain at Warren Buffett and co.’s investment activity during the first quarter.

(h/t DATAROMA)

(1) What’s most interesting, though, is what isn’t there. The 13F revealed that Berkshire has omitted one or more holding(s) after requesting confidential treatment from the SEC. A tactic that Berkshire employed to great effect in the second half of 2023 and early 2024 when it built up a sizable stake in Chubb.

Now, once again, it seems that Berkshire is cooking something up that it would prefer to keep under wraps for the time being. If the Chubb case is any indication, we might be waiting a while before we learn the mystery stock’s name. Or, perhaps, we’ll find out when this current quarter’s 13F comes out in August.

On the bright side, this should give us all plenty to speculate about in the meantime.

(2) Bank of America falls out of Berkshire’s top three. Buffett sold another 48.66 million shares of BAC 0.00%↑ in the first quarter, dropping it below Coca-Cola as the conglomerate’s fourth-largest holding. He has now offloaded Bank of America stock in three consecutive quarters, though the pace of sales seems to be slowing.

(3) The rest of Berkshire’s investment activity in Q1 2025 mostly went to form. Regular readers of this newsletter would already know about the Sirius XM, Occidental Petroleum, and Verisign purchases — as well as the Davita sale. (Berkshire owns more than 10% of these companies and must publicly disclose any transactions within two business days.)

Berkshire more than doubled its stakes in Pool Corp. and alcoholic beverage giant Constellation Brands — while also topping up Domino’s Pizza and HEICO. On the flip side, Charter Communications, Capital One Financial, and T-Mobile were all trimmed back — with Liberty Media Formula One (Series C) slashed nearly in half.

(All four of those companies have now been on the chopping block for multiple quarters in a row. Not a great sign for their longevity in the portfolio.)

Speaking of which, Berkshire fully exited its positions in Citigroup and Nu Holdings.

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And, now, on to the latest news and notes out of Omaha…

Karen Langley of the Wall Street Journal landed the much-coveted first interview with Warren Buffett since he announced his retirement as CEO at year’s end. Why did Buffett decide to call time on his career now? Age had simply caught up with him. “There was no magic moment,” he said. “How do you know the day that you became old? I didn’t really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90. But when you start getting old, it’s irreversible.” Buffett added that his “health is fine” — other than some balance issues and occasionally fumbling a person’s name.

• And it’s not like Buffett is really going anywhere. He still plans to come into the office each day — “I’m not going to sit at home and watch soap operas” — and will lend a hand whenever needed. “I will be useful here if there’s a panic in the market because I don’t get fearful when things go down in price or everybody else gets scared. And that really isn’t a function of age.”

• But, now, it is Greg Abel’s time to shine. Buffett once joked that his successor manages to get so much done that it seems like he has more than 24 hours in his day. At the same time, Buffett noticed himself slowing down. “[Greg] just was so much more effective at getting things done,” he said. “It was unfair, really, not to put Greg in the job. The more years that Berkshire gets out of Greg, the better.”

A massive new mural of Charlie Munger — commissioned by financial research platform Quartr — now looks out over downtown Omaha. Featuring a timeless Munger-ism — “Those who keep learning will keep rising in life” — its vibrant design nods back to his early involvement with Blue Chip Stamps.

Last week, Berkshire Hathaway sold 1.145 million shares of Davita for $168.6 million. This transaction is pursuant to a Share Repurchase Agreement between the two companies that requires Berkshire to sell back DVA 0.00%↑ shares whenever its stake in the dialysis provider exceeds 45.0%. So, since Davita repurchased 3.7 million of its own shares in the first quarter, Berkshire had to trim its position, too.

The Minnesota Star Tribune really came up clutch this week on the Berkshire front. First, the paper interviewed Chris Kelly, the new CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary HomeServices of America. And, right off the bat, he squashed that rumor about Berkshire selling its real estate brokerage to Compass. “There is no pending or contemplated transaction between HomeServices and Compass — or any third party.”

• Kelly also waved off concerns that the recent National Association of Realtors lawsuit and settlement would completely disrupt the real estate industry. “Even though most of us could buy a car online,” he said, “the vast majority — about 80% of us — still go to a dealership and talk face-to-face to another human to go through that transaction. Buying a home or selling one is even more emotional and a bigger financial commitment, so that part of it is really, really sticky. The thought that, somehow, the consumer was being forced into these relationships with the agents was never valid, in my opinion.” He added that home sellers “have shown they’re still very comfortable with the manner in which these transactions are structured”.

The Star Tribune also spoke to Dairy Queen CEO Troy Bader about his company’s goal for $10 billion in sales by 2030. Last year, DQ managed to bring in $6.4 billion. “We’ve got a long way to go,” said Bader. “For us to get there, we need to make sure that every experience at every restaurant is exceptional every day. Easy to say, really hard to do.” Bader sees several avenues for growth — including China and certain urban centers domestically. “Dairy Queen started as much more of a Midwestern and rural brand,” he said. “We have no locations in Manhattan. We have very few locations in L.A. and downtown Chicago.” And, unlike the rest of the fast food industry, DQ just had a “positive” first quarter. “If you see the releases of some of our competitors, not everybody is experiencing that right now.”

• A few more interesting DQ-related facts from the article: (1) In 2024, about one-third of Americans ate at Dairy Queen at least once. On average, they made three visits during the year. (2) Dairy Queen holds an 11% share of the domestic chicken strip market. (3) The company is known for its sweet treats, but food sales actually make up approximately half of revenue at “Grill & Chill” locations in the U.S.

And a few odds and ends to finish off the week…

• This week, Berkshire collected $78 million in quarterly dividends from Apple, $12.25 million from Constellation Brands, $8.7 million from Ally Financial, and $3.1 million from Aon.

• Earlier this month, Warren Buffett and Greg Abel both said that Berkshire hoped to remain invested in the five Japanese trading houses for a very long time. Marubeni CEO Masayuki Omoto feels the same way. “With respect to our dialogue with Berkshire,” he told BloombergTV, “we see a good alignment in philosophy of creating long-term value. We hope to have a good collaboration with them in the future.”

• Mark Tobak over at Hedge Fund Alpha noted that Buffett — freed from the CEO role at year’s end — will now have ample time to read, write, and study companies to his heart’s content. That should be good news for his students.

• Maverick Equity Research
  always does a great job at transforming the dollars and cents from financial statements into easy-to-understand charts. This week, he turned his attention to Berkshire’s ever-growing cash pile.