Greg Abel Unloads Amazon, Lifts Alphabet Class A to 54,249,798
greg abel’s first-quarter filing showed Berkshire Hathaway unloaded all of its Amazon shares and more than tripled its Alphabet Class A stake. The move gave investors the first clean read on how Berkshire’s portfolio is changing under its new chief executive.
Alphabet Class A Reaches 54,249,798
54,249,798 shares now sit in Berkshire Hathaway’s Alphabet Class A position, equal to 5.9% of the portfolio. Abel more than tripled that holding in the first quarter, turning Alphabet into one of the company’s largest stock positions and making it the clearest new expression of the firm’s latest allocation choices.
3,585,215 Alphabet Class C shares also landed on the books, equal to 0.4% of the portfolio. Berkshire opened that position in the same quarter, adding a second way into the same company while the Class A stake expanded sharply.
Amazon Drops Out Of Berkshire
All of Berkshire Hathaway’s Amazon shares were sold, ending a position that had represented just under 0.2% of the portfolio before the exit. The move is notable because Buffett’s investment team bought Amazon stock in the first quarter of 2019, when the position was still part of Berkshire’s long-term technology exposure.
About 160% separates Amazon’s end-of-first-quarter-2019 level from the end of last year, and the stock has climbed 100% over the past year. That leaves the sale looking less like a broad retreat from technology than a sharper reordering of where Berkshire wants its capital to sit now.
Buffett Era To Abel Era
Greg Abel took over as chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway at the start of this year, so the first quarter offered the market a first glimpse of his investing hand. Warren Buffett had originally bought Alphabet shares in the third quarter of last year, and the new filing shows Abel expanded that bet rather than reversing it.
For investors tracking Berkshire’s next phase, the useful read is not just that Amazon disappeared. It is that capital moved into Alphabet Class A and Class C at the same time, leaving Berkshire with a larger technology footprint but a different mix inside it.
