Berkshire Now Has a $4 Billion Stake in Largest U.S. Bank

By Nicole Friedman 

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is increasing its bet on the U.S. banking industry.

The Omaha conglomerate took a $4 billion stake in JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the third quarter, adding to a list of other large holdings in major American financial institutions. JPMorgan is currently the largest U.S. bank by assets.

Berkshire also took a new stake during the quarter in Pittsburgh bank PNC Financial Services Group Inc. and increased its holdings of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and U.S. Bancorp. Other banking investments include Wells Fargo & Co. and M&T Bank Corp.

Berkshire disclosed the new positions as of Sept. 30 in a securities filing Wednesday.

JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.

The new Berkshire investment in JPMorgan follows a number of existing ties between the two companies.

Berkshire portfolio manager Todd Combs is on the JPMorgan board and JPMorgan Chief Executive James Dimon is a longtime personal friend of Mr. Buffett. In June, they wrote an op-ed piece together that urged companies to consider ending the practice of providing quarterly earnings guidance.

Mr. Buffett and Mr. Dimon have also teamed up with Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com Inc., to form a health-care venture aimed at lowering costs for the hundreds of thousands of employees of the three companies.

JPMorgan is on track to report a record year: It notched a profit of $8.38 billion in the third quarter, with strength across its businesses. The bank's stock has tripled in the past 10 years, easily outpacing a roughly 65% rise in the KBW Nasdaq bank index.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 14, 2018 17:34 ET (22:34 GMT)

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