Berkshire returns to the newspaper business, takes bigger bite of Domino's Pizza

By Claudia Assis

Warren Buffett's Berkshire, which had sold off its newspaper empire in 2020, also trimmed its stakes in Apple and Amazon

Now led by Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaway is transitioning from the Warren Buffett era.

As it neared the very end of its Warren Buffett era, Berkshire Hathaway seemed to return to some of its roots in the quarter that ended Dec. 31 - it placed a brand-new bet on the New York Times, six years after it sold its newspaper empire, and increased its stakes in Domino's Pizza and Chevron, according to a securities filing released late Tuesday.

Shares of New York Times (NYT) rallied 2% in premarket trading Wednesday toward a second straight record close, and a seventh straight gain.

Besides publishing its flagship newspaper, the media company also operates digital properties and apps. According to the filing, Berkshire (BRK.A) (BRK.B) bought more than 5 million shares of the company, worth about $370 million as of Tuesday's close. That represents 3.1% of the New York Times' market capitalization of $12.02 billion.

Securities regulators require all institutional investment managers holding more than $100 million in certain securities to disclose their positions in filings called 13-Fs. The disclosures offer a window into a firm's stock and ETF holdings at the end of a quarter, and into some of its possible strategies.

Berkshire got out of the newspaper business in February 2020, selling the entire portfolio in the BH Media Group, as well as the Buffalo News, which serves western New York, to news provider Lee Enterprises (LEE) for $140 million.

The conglomerate, now led by Greg Abel, also increased its stake in Domino's Pizza (DPZ) by about 12% to more than 3.3 million shares, and in Chevron (CVX) by about 7% to more than 130 million shares, among other notable moves.

It also placed a fresh bet on Liberty Live Holdings (LLYVA), the partial owner of entertainment company Live Nation (LYV), which split off from Liberty Media in December.

In November, Berkshire surprised Wall Street by buying shares of Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), also one of the last moves by Buffett.

Late Tuesday, Berkshire disclosed that it trimmed its Alphabet stake by about 25,600 shares, to 17.85 million shares.

The company also reduced its stakes in Apple (AAPL) by 10.3 million shares, or 4.3%, to 227.9 million shares, and lowered its holdings of Amazon.com shares (AMZN) by 7.7 million shares, or 77%, to 2.28 million shares.

Berkshire went through C-suite turnover in December, losing key stock picker and then-Geico CEO Todd Combs to JPMorgan Chase. Longtime CFO Marc Hamburg is also departing and will step down on June 1.

Handpicked CEO successor Abel will, of course, face a lot of scrutiny and comparisons with Buffett, who, besides his reputation as a keen investing mind, also enjoyed the status of a cultural cornerstone.

-Claudia Assis

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