Berkshire Hathaway‘s new CEO Greg Abel started off the week with a $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison and then followed that up Monday with a $10 billion stock investment in Google’s parent company.
Abel also hinted that he may depart from Warren Buffett‘s longtime hands-off operating model by consolidating Taylor Morrison with Berkshire’s existing site-built homebuilding operations that are part of its Clayton Homes subsidiary. For six decades under Buffett, Berkshire promised to largely leave companies alone after it acquired them and allow the executives to keep running the day-to-day operations the same way.
“Over time, we expect to unify our site-built homebuilding operations into a combined platform,” Abel said in a statement about his first big acquisition on Sunday, “enabling us to deliver the dream of homeownership to more Americans.”
In addition to Clayton, which specializes in manufactured homes but also has a site-built unit, Berkshire owns several other housing related businesses including Benjamin Moore paint and Shaw Floors.
Berkshire’s new investment in Alphabet will expand the stake that Buffett’s company started to build last fall. By the end of March, Berkshire’s Alphabet investment had tripled to include nearly 58 million Alphabet shares worth almost $17 billion.
