Berkshire Hathaway’s new CEO Greg Abel spent a significant chunk of the company’s massive pile of cash as it invested $10 billion in Google’s parent company and repurchased about $4.5 billion of its shares.
The conglomerate that legendary investor Warren Buffett built reported its second-quarter earnings Saturday morning and disclosed that its cash holdings had shrunk to $365.5 billion from nearly $400 billion at the end of March.
Berkshire’s report suggested that it had added more than $24 billion worth of commercial, industrial and other stocks to its portfolio, but the earnings report doesn’t name the stocks it bought. That won’t be revealed until a separate filing later this month.
Abel took over as CEO in January when Buffett retired after six decades leading the company. But Buffett remains chairman.
Abel announced in March that Berkshire had resumed buying back its own shares for the first time in more than two years, but investors were underwhelmed when the company only repurchased about $234 million worth of Berkshire stock in the first quarter.
