Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) chairman and top boss Warren Buffett on Saturday said he felt “extremely good” about the conglomerate’s stake in Japan’s five leading trading companies, but added that further investments in other countries were unlikely.
Buffett was referring to Berkshire’s (BRK.A)(BRK.B) announcement in August 2020 of acquiring 5% passive stakes in each of Japan’s Itochu (OTCPK:ITOCF)(OTCPK:ITOCY), Marubeni (OTCPK:MARUY)(OTCPK:MARUF), Mitsubishi (OTCPK:MSBHF), Mitsui (OTCPK:MITSY)(OTCPK:MITSF) and Sumitomo (OTCPK:SSUMF)(OTCPK:SSUMY).
“We made the commitment to Japan which I did five years ago and that was just overwhelmingly…compelling, extraordinarily compelling,” Buffett said at the conglomerate’s annual shareholder meeting.
“We spent a year and we got a few percent of our assets in five very big companies but that’s the problem with being our size. You won’t find us making a lot of investments outside the United States,” the famed investor said. “We will be American-oriented. If we do something really big it’s extremely likely that it’ll be in the United States,” he added.
The 93-year old businessman said that he was aware of what goes on in most markets around the world.
“But I think it’s unlikely that we make any large commitments in almost any country you can name, although we don’t rule it out entirely, and I feel extremely good about our Japanese position,” Buffett said.
The “Oracle of Omaha” also brought up two major investments that had been pitched by his late associate and right-hand man Charlie Munger, one of which was Berkshire’s (BRK.A)(BRK.B) stake in Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD (OTCPK:BYDDF)(OTCPK:BYDDY).
“Charlie twice pounded the table with me and just said ‘buy buy buy’ and BYD (OTCPK:BYDDF)(OTCPK:BYDDY) was one of them and Costco (COST) was the other and we bought a certain amount of Costco and bought quite a bit of BYD,” Buffett said, adding that he “should have been more aggressive” in COST.