Berkshire Hathaway Appears to Be Accelerating Stock Buybacks

Berkshire Hathaway appears to have increased the pace of its stock repurchases during the second quarter, a development that could be welcomed by investors, Andrew Bary reported for Barron's Daily.

Warren Buffett's latest regulatory filing has fueled expectations that Berkshire Hathaway significantly increased its share repurchases. (Photo: Mr. Satterly, Wikimedia Commons)

The company resumed buying back shares in March after nearly two years with no repurchase activity, although the initial purchases were relatively modest.

Berkshire repurchased just $235 million of stock in the first quarter and none during the first two weeks of April.

However, based on recent regulatory filings by Warren Buffett, Barron's estimated that Berkshire may have bought back between $5 billion and $11 billion of stock during the second quarter.

In a recent filing, Buffett disclosed ownership of 188,290 Class A shares and 1,162 Class B shares, which together represented 13.2% of Berkshire's outstanding shares as of July 14.

Using that ownership percentage, Barron's estimated that Berkshire had approximately 1,426,446 Class A-equivalent shares outstanding on that date.

That figure would represent a decline of more than 11,000 Class A-equivalent shares since April 14.

With Berkshire's stock averaging roughly $721,000 per Class A share between April 14 and the end of the second quarter, the reduction in shares outstanding would imply approximately $8 billion in repurchases over that period, with most of the buybacks likely occurring during the second quarter.