No. of Recommendations: 2
Google's parent edges out Coca-Cola for third place in Berkshire's equity portfolio
Berkshire Hathaway has not yet told us whether it has actually purchased the $10 billion of Alphabet shares it agreed to buy directly from Google's parent in a deal announced on June 1.
But if those new shares are combined with its holdings of GOOGL and GOOG as of March 31, as disclosed by Berkshire in its Q1 13F filing with the SEC last month, their total market value is now slightly more than Berkshire's long-time stake in Coca-Cola that Warren Buffett purchased after the 1986 market crash.
Here's the math:
Alphabet's news release said Berkshire had agreed to buy $5 billion of its Class A shares (GOOGL) for $351.81 each and $5 billion of its Class C shares (GOOG) for $348.20 each.
That works out to more than 14 million shares of each class:
Warren Buffett Watch Graph
Adding the new shares to the existing holdings gives Berkshire 68.5 million Class A shares and 17.9 million Class C shares:
Warren Buffett Watch Graph
Using Thursday's closing prices, the Class A shares are valued at just under $25.2 billion and the Class C shares are worth almost $6.6 billion for a total of $31.79 billion.
Warren Buffett Watch Graph
That puts Alphabet into third place in Berkshire's equity portfolio by a razor-thin margin of $34 million ahead of Coke.
Warren Buffett Watch Graph
Last Friday, Coca-Cola was ahead by almost $2 billion, but its shares fell nearly 4% this week while Alphabet gained close to 2%.
Warren Buffett Watch Graph
Stay tuned!
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https://link.cnbc.com/public/46226994 