Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has about $15 billion riding on Japanese stocks that have surged to multi-decade highs
- Warren Buffett's Japan bet has swelled from about $6 billion to $15 billion in under three years.
- He's grown his stakes in five Japanese companies from about 5% in August 2020 to 7.4% today.
Warren Buffett's unusual bet on five Japanese stocks has ballooned in size from roughly $6 billion to $15 billion in under three years.
The famed investor's company, Berkshire Hathaway, first revealed it owned just over 5% of Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsui, Misubishi, and Sumitomo on August 30, 2020. The conglomerate boosted its positions in the five "sogo shosha" or trading houses to between 6.2% and 6.8% by November last year.
Since then, Berkshire has raised its stakes to around 7.4% across the board, Buffett disclosed during Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting this month.
Meanwhile, the five Japanese stocks have soared by an average of 146% to multi-decade highs since Buffett's first disclosure. Marubeni has led the way with a 241% gain, while Itochu has trailed the pack with a 85% rise.
The upshot of Berkshire raising its interests in the businesses by roughly 50% within the past three years, and the stocks skyrocketing in price during the same period, is that Buffett's company now has about 2.5 times as much money riding on them.
Buffett's original decision to invest was a surprising one, as he tends to concentrate his wagers and mostly sticks to US stocks. Apple, Bank of America, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Chevron accounted for over 75% of the total value of Berkshire's stock portfolio at the end of March.
The billionaire CEO explained during his company's recent shareholder meeting that he broke from tradition because the Japanese wager was such a no-brainer. The businesses were large enough to move the needle at Berkshire, traded cheaply, operated in a broad range of familiar industries, and several of them paid dividends and repurchased their shares, he said.
Moreover, Buffett and his team realized they could hedge against currency depreciation by issuing yen-dominated bonds.
"They're doing intelligent things, and they're sizable, so we just started buying them," Buffett recalled. "We are $4 billion or $5 billion ahead plus dividends."
Buffett emphasized that the stocks were absolute bargains during a recent trip to Tokyo. He described their valuations as "ridiculous" relative to prevailing interest rates.