Warren Buffett’s insurance conglomerate has earned nearly $ 100 billion on Apple, making the iPhone maker one of the best investments of all time for the 90-year-old billionaire investor.
Buffett revealed last weekend’s 12-digit gain in its annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Buffett conglomerate has long since left its Omaha, Nebraska office. The company has a large investment portfolio that includes dozens of well-known companies from Geico insurance to the fast food chain Dairy Queen to the underwear manufacturer Fruit of the Loom.
Buffett, who had long avoided investing in technology stocks, first bought 10 million Apple shares in 2016. Since then, he has added to that stock, eventually investing more than $ 36 billion in the technology company’s shares. That stake, including the $ 11 billion shares it earned last year and the more than $ 3 billion Berkshire received in dividends, was worth about $ 134 billion at the end of last year. Apple shares have fallen slightly in 2021, but have risen by about 400% in the last five years. The company’s share price rose more than 5% on Monday to nearly $ 128 a share.
Buffett’s Berkshire now owns just over 5% of Apple, which has a total market value of over $ 2 trillion, becoming by far Buffett’s largest investment in another listed company. At $ 120 billion, Berkshire’s stake in Apple equals just over 42% of its global investment portfolio. All Apple shares are owned by Berkshire and not directly by Buffett.
Buffett said just over the size of Berkshire’s investment in Apple in the shareholder letter he launched over the weekend. In early February, in an interview with Bloomberg, Buffett praised Apple CEO Tim Cook. “Tim understands the world to an extent that very, very few CEOs we’ve met in the last 60 years could fit,” Buffett told Bloomberg.
Three years ago, Buffett told CNBC that he believes an ordinary person’s connection to his iPhone is strong enough that most people would pay much more for the device than they do now.
“I focus on … hundreds, hundreds, hundreds of millions of people who are practically living their lives [the iPhone]”Buffett said then.” I have a plane that costs me a lot, a million dollars a year or something. If I used the iPhone like all my friends, I’d rather give up the plane. “