Warren Buffett has made sweeping changes to Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio in 2024, nearly doubling the conglomerate’s cash reserves and selling a net $134 billion worth of stocks. The sales resulted in Berkshire paying the most corporate income tax to the IRS of any American company in history.
Buffett prioritized building the company’s liquidity over investing in public companies, opting for record amounts of cash, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets. This move allowed him to weather market volatility while maintaining a substantial cash position. The value of Berkshire’s cash and cash-equivalent assets nearly doubled last year, from around $168 billion to $334 billion.
The company also jettisoned several long-held stocks in its portfolio, including Apple and Bank of America, and pared its positions in these companies. Buffett’s team spent about $9 billion on new stock purchases, a significant decrease from the previous years’ spending.
Buffett himself sold shares worth over $1 billion last year, more than quadruple the figure for 2022. He stopped buying back Berkshire’s own stock in the second half of 2024, citing that the company’s Class B shares are now trading at a substantial premium to their intrinsic value.
The record corporate income tax payment of $26.8 billion made up about 5% of all federal income tax paid by American companies last year. Buffett attributed this increase primarily to the stock sales last year and the realization of taxable gains on holdings such as Apple.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-cash-pile-stock-sales-tax-record-2025-2