Berkshire Takes to the Skies
The investment managers at Berkshire have made a more than $1 billion bet on the three major domestic airlines.
While we had expected to talk more heavily about Phillips 66, which
Looking more closely at the other third-quarter purchases, Berkshire picked up another 1.9 million shares of Phillips 66, as well as additional shares of Charter Communications, Visa, Wabco Holdings, and Bank of New York Mellon. It looks to us like all of these transactions, including the airlines stock purchases, were initiated by Todd Combs and/or Ted Weschler. CEO Warren Buffett seems to have been more focused on keeping quiet about Berkshire's Wells Fargo stake, as the insurer is right on the cusp on exceeding the 10% non-bank holding company level that has put a ceiling on Berkshire's investment in the bank. On the sales front, Berkshire eliminated its holdings in Sunco Energy and Media General, while trimming positions in Deere, Kinder Morgan and Wal-Mart--using half of the proceeds to fund their purchases during the quarter. And, finally, another recapitalization at Liberty Media resulted in more tracking stocks--namely, Liberty Media SiriusXM--for Berkshire's investment managers to monitor.
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