Warren Buffett’s BofA selling spree edges toward key milestone

A DOZEN rounds of selling have trimmed Warren Buffett’s stake in Bank of America to the cusp of a key regulatory threshold, in which he will no longer need to quickly notify the public of his trading.

His Berkshire Hathaway now owns about 10.3 per cent of the bank after the latest round of his 10-week selling spree, a regulatory filing shows.

If he maintains course, his stake would drop below 10 per cent within a week or so, freeing him from the duty to swiftly disclose trades. Once Berskshire holds less than that, it can provide quarterly updates instead.

This time, Buffett liquidated US$461 million of stock over the three days through Friday (Sep 27), according to the filing. That brought total sales since mid-July to US$9.4 billion.

Even then, Berkshire’s remaining stake in the lender is worth almost US$32 billion, based on Friday’s closing price, preserving the conglomerate’s perch as the top shareholder. BLOOMBERG