(Adds TSMC shares and background)
By Carolina Mandl and Sittrarasu S
NEW YORK/BANGALORE, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett's
Berkshire Hathaway Inc slashed its stake in Taiwanese
contract chipmaker TSMC as well as in some
banks in the fourth quarter, while bolstering its holdings in
Apple Inc .
Berkshire cut its position in Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) by 86.2% to 8.29 million sponsored
American depositary shares, according to a regulatory filing.
This comes roughly three months after Berkshire unveiled it
bought more than $4.1 billion worth of TSMC stock, which sent
shares of the world's largest contract chipmaker soaring.
TSMC depository receipts fell 4% in U.S. after hours trade
on Tuesday. In Taiwan, TSMC shares opened down 3.3% as Asian
markets started Wednesday trading.
Depositary shares in TSMC, which did not immediately respond
to a request for comment, have surged almost 32% this year,
closing at $97.96 on Tuesday.
"Berkshire made a small profit on TSMC. It was not a huge,
huge win for Berkshire," said Cathy Seifert, a CFRA Research
analyst. According to her calculations, Berkshire bought it for
roughly $68.5 and sold for $74.5.
It is rare but not unprecedented for Berkshire to quickly
undo a multi-billion dollar investment in a company's stock. In
the first quarter of 2022, Berkshire sold nearly all of what had
been an $8.3 billion stake in Verizon Communications Inc that it amassed in late 2020.
TSMC last month said revenue in the first quarter is likely
to dip 5% as it weathers a global downturn in the chip industry
because of softening consumer demand for electronics. TSMC
executives have said they do not expect market conditions to
improve until the second half of the year.
Besides TSMC, Buffett also divested 91.4% of its shares in
US Bancorp , to 6.7 million shares, and shrunk its stake
in BNY Mellon by roughly 60%, to 25.1 million shares. Both cuts
totaled nearly $5.5 billion at current prices.
Buffett's conglomerate also holds shares in Citigroup Inc , Bank of America and Jefferies .
Berkshire trimmed some positions across its portfolio of
U.S. listed companies, including Chevron , Activision
Blizzard , maker of the "Call of Duty" video game, and
Kroger .
Microsoft Corp is making efforts to conclude the
acquisition of Activision Blizzard. On Feb. 21, Microsoft will
defend the deal in front of European Union and national
antitrust officials at a closed hearing.
Among Berkshire's few additions are Apple, which Buffett
views more as a consumer products company. Berkshire bought
another 20.8 million Apple shares worth $3.2 billion, raising
its stake to 5.8%, according to the filing.
Shares in Apple have surged nearly 18% this year.
Berkshire also disclosed a new stake of $84 million in
building materials company Louisiana-Pacific Corp .
(Reporting by Carolina Mandl, Jonathan Stempel in New York,
Sittrarasu S in Bangalore, Limou Lee and Faith Hung in Taipei;
Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Leslie Adler, Lincoln Feast and
Himani Sarkar)
