(The Associated Press circulated the following by Josh Funk on January 10.)
OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett’s company bought 29,600 more shares of Burlington Northern Santa Fe stock, giving Berkshire Hathaway ownership of 17.4 percent of the nation’s second-largest railroad.
Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday reveal that Berkshire bought the stock Monday when Burlington Northern’s stock dipped below $77 a share. The filing said Berkshire paid $76.55 for each of the shares.
Buffett’s company now owns 60.9 million shares of BNSF.
Berkshire officials do not typically comment on the company’s stock holdings, and a company spokeswoman said no one was available to comment Thursday.
But Buffett and Berkshire vice chairman Charlie Munger discussed their interest in railroads at last year’s annual meeting. They said railroads have become an appealing investment because they are healthier today than in past years, something Buffett and Munger said they were slow to realize because of past poor performance in the industry.
Burlington Northern’s stock gained $1.18, or 1.5 percent, to trade at $79.03 Thursday morning.
Berkshire’s Class A stock slipped $100, or less than 1 percent, to trade at $130,300 Thursday morning.
Berkshire also invested early last year in two other railroad companies, Norfolk Southern Corp. and Union Pacific Corp., but Berkshire cut its holdings in those two railroads in the second half of 2007.
A November filing showed that Berkshire reduced its Union Pacific stake to 4.5 million shares by the end of September. That’s less than half of the 10.5 million shares Berkshire previously said it owned last March 31.
That same November filing said Berkshire held 1.9 million shares of Norfolk Southern as of Sept. 30. Previously, Berkshire had said it owned nearly 6.4 million shares of Norfolk Southern.
Berkshire owns furniture, insurance, jewelry and candy companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms and has major investments in such companies as The Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co.