Warren Buffett Watch: Berkshire’s Japanese stock positions top $30 billion

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The total value of the five Japanese “trading houses” in Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio has topped $30 billion in recent weeks, and Warren Buffett is apparently still buying.

Berkshire had already been building its positions for twelve months when Buffett initially revealed the stakes of around 5% each on August 30, 2020, his 90th birthday.

At that time, the total value of the five positions was roughly $6.3 billion.

It’s up 392% to $31.0 billion today, with Berkshire buying more over the years and the stocks soaring between 227% and 551%.

The total could be even higher because some additional purchases may not have been disclosed yet.

We know Warren Buffett has been adding to what was already a tremendously successful investment, with public acknowledgements recently that two of the stakes have gone above 10%.

One of the two, Mitsui, detailed this week exactly how many shares Berkshire owns.

In a news release Thursday, the company relays word from Berkshire that its National Indemnity subsidiary owned 292,044,900 shares as of September 30.

At Friday’s close, they’re valued at around $7.1 billion.

It’s a 10.1% stake, making Nation Indemnity its biggest shareholder.

It’s also an increase of 2.3% from the 285,401,400 shares, a 9.7% stake, reported in March.

This week’s news release is a follow-up to one issued two weeks ago by Mitsui in which it said it had been “informed” by Berkshire that “they now hold 10% or more of the voting rights in Mitsui,” but had not been told the exact number of shares Berkshire owned.

In late August, Mitsubishi reported it had been told by Berkshire that its holding had increased to 10.2% from 9.7% in March.

We haven’t heard anything since March about Berkshire’s three other Japanese holdings, Itochu, Marubeni, and Sumitomo, but it would not be a surprise to learn those stakes have also gone above 10%.

Back in 2020, Buffett promised the companies he would not raise Berkshire’s stakes above 10% without permission.  

In his annual letter to shareholders released in February, however, Buffett wrote, “As we approached this limit the five companies agreed to moderately relax the ceiling.”

As a result, he said, “Over time, you will likely see Berkshire’s ownership of all five increase somewhat.”

In 2023, Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick he was first attracted to the stocks in 2020 because “they were selling at what I thought was a ridiculous price, particularly the price compared to the interest rates prevailing at that time.”

This year, he told shareholders Berkshire will hold onto them for “50 years or forever.

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Berkshire’s top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S., Japan, and Hong Kong, by market value, based on today’s closing prices.

Holdings are as of June 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 14, 2025, except for:

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at [email protected]. (Sorry, but we don’t forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

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Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire’s website.

— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch