Buffett's Berkshire buys more railroad shares
OMAHA -- The purchase raised the legendary investor's stake in the railroad to 15%, just short of 53 million shares.
It was unclear whether Buffett himself or one of his more than 60 subsidiary companies made the decision to buy. A Berkshire spokeswoman said Friday morning that the company would make no comment.
Berkshire paid $67.5 million for the shares on Tuesday at $79.85 apiece. The price was 11 cents a share less than the price a Berkshire subsidiary paid for 4.3 million shares last Thursday and 12 cents a share less than the 2.5 million shares it bought last Friday. Last Monday, the company bought more than 3.3 million shares for $80 apiece.
The shares acquired last week were bought by Berkshire subsidiary National Indemnity.
Buffett has said in the past that railroads have become an appealing investment because they have a better competitive position today than in past years. Buffett said he was slow to realize that railroads were a good investment because he was prejudiced by the industry's past performance.
Berkshire omitted those investments from a quarterly summary of its stock holdings filed earlier this month because the SEC allowed the company to keep them confidential, so it's not clear how much Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern stock Berkshire currently owns.
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