Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold its Biogen stake last quarter – and slashed its pharmaceutical bets

• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway exited its Biogen and Axalta bets last quarter.
• Buffett’s company trimmed its pharmaceutical positions and sold some Chevron and GM stock.
• The investor and his team increased their stakes in Aon, Kroger, and RH.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold its stakes in Biogen and Axalta, trimmed its pharmaceutical bets, and added to a handful of positions in the second quarter, regulatory filings show.

The famed investor’s conglomerate may have cashed out its Biogen investment after the drugmaker’s stock soared to a record high in June on the news that federal regulators had approved its controversial Alzheimer’s treatment.

Berkshire trimmed its stakes in AbbVie, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck last quarter, despite only establishing those positions in the third quarter of 2020. Buffett and his team also sold a few more Chevron shares after halving their stake in the energy group last quarter, and cashed in a chunk of their General Motors stock. On the other hand, they boosted their positions in Kroger, RH, and Aon – their only new investment in the first quarter.

Berkshire didn’t make any major changes to its portfolio, which was widely expected as the company’s recent second-quarter earnings showed it only bought $1 billion of stocks and disposed of $2.1 billion worth in the period.

The only new name in Berkshire’s portfolio was Organon, the name given to a bunch of Merck’s businesses that it spun off in June. Merck shareholders received one Organon share for every 10 Merck shares they held.

Notably, Berkshire didn’t eliminate its Wells Fargo stake despite selling the overwhelming majority of it since last year. Buffett’s company has been a shareholder for more than 30 years, and counted the bank among its five biggest holdings for most of that time. Moreover, it owned as much as 13% of the bank in 1994, and held $27 billion worth of its shares in 2016 – dwarfing its $31 million stake at the end of June.

Buffett is eager to deploy up to $80 billion of Berkshire’s roughly $140 billion cash pile, he said at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting in May. However, the investor has struggled to find bargains with stocks at close to record highs, private equity firms and SPACs driving up the prices of acquisitions, and even buybacks becoming less attractive with Berkshire stock up 27% this year.