Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway raised its stakes in Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui & Co., Itochu, Marubeni and Sumitomo — all to 7.4%.
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Shares of the largest Japanese trading houses rallied on Tuesday after Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway raised its stakes in them overnight.
The 94-year-old investor’s holding company raised its holdings in five Japanese trading houses — Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo — by more than 1 percentage point each, to stakes ranging from 8.5% to 9.8%, according to a regulatory filing.
Shares in all five companies rose at least 4% shortly after the open. Itochu and Marubeni were the top movers, advancing 4.12% and 4.55% respectively, as at 10.05 a.m. local time.
The five companies are the biggest “sogo shosha,” or trading houses, in Japan and invest across a wide range of sectors both domestically and abroad, “in a manner somewhat similar to Berkshire itself,” Buffett said.
He previously indicated his intention to increase his ownership in Japanese stocks – especially the five largest trading houses – in his annual letter to shareholders released in February.
Berkshire had bought into the five houses in the summer of 2019. Its Japanese holdings amounted to $23.5 billion at the end of 2024, at an aggregate cost of $13.8 billion.
— CNBC’s Yun Li and Hakyung Kim contributed to this report.
