RH Shares Soar After Berkshire Hathaway Stake Revealed

A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Berkshire Hathaway now owns 1.2 million shares of furniture retailer RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware.

As a result, shares of RH soared 7.5 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday (Nove. 14), rising 41 percent so far this year, according to CNBC.

The filing includes investments by Warren Buffett and his portfolio managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. In addition to its stake in RH, BH also obtained a new stake in Occidental Petroleum, but decreased its stake in Wells Fargo by 7.7 percent. Berkshire also cut its Phillips 66 stake by 6.7 percent, while maintaining its positions in Bank of America, Delta Air Lines, Bank of New York Mellon and Coca-Cola.

Back in May, it was reported that BH owned $860.6 million of Amazon shares at the end of March. While Buffet has shied away from tech companies in the past, saying he didn’t know enough about the industry, Berkshire Hathaway bought shares in Apple in 2016 and built the stake it holds to upward of $50 billion. Buffet has credited both Combs and Weschler for purchases of both airline stocks and Apple, saying they give the firm “younger eyes.”

Berkshire will often purchase stocks when buying the entire company is too costly. The company also owns more than 90 businesses, including the BNSF railroad and Geico auto insurer.

The interest in Amazon came after Berkshire teamed up with Amazon and JPMorgan on Haven, an independent healthcare company that is aiming to fix the nation’s healthcare system, with a focus on reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction.

“We want to change the way people experience healthcare so that it is simpler, better and lower cost,” Dr. Atul Gawande, Haven’s CEO, said in a statement in March. “We’ll start small, learn from the experience of patients, and continue to expand to meet their needs.”