Berkshire Hathaway sells $44.9 million of shares in China’s BYD

(Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company owned by Warren Buffett, has sold 1.55 million Hong Kong-listed shares of electric vehicle maker BYD for HK$351.81 million ($44.85 million), a stock exchange filing showed.

The sale lowered Berkshire’s holdings in BYD’s issued H-shares to 12.9% on Jan. 27, down from 13.04%, the filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed on Thursday.

Berkshire, which started selling the BYD shares in late August, has accumulatively reduced its holding by more than a third.

Buffett’s company acquired 225 million BYD shares in 2008, giving it a 7.73% stake, equal to the 20.49% stake in H shares, according to BYD’s annual report.

BYD was the world’s largest plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles maker in 2022, with a total of 1.86 million cars sold, growing faster than Tesla .

($1 = 7.8434 Hong Kong dollars)

(Reporting by Twinnie Siu and Zhang Yan; editing by Jason Neely; Editing by David Goodman)