Boost for Berkshire-owned stock, but Buffett slips on wealth list

Berkshire is biggest stake holder in company that may sell itself

VIEW IN BROWSER | SUBSCRIBE FRI, JUN 21, 2019 WARREN BUFFETT WATCH Berkshire-backed stock gets boost Shares of Axalta Coating Systems ended today at $29.99, up more than 16% from their Tuesday close. The company announced early Wednesday that its board has "initiated a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives, including a potential sale of the Company, changes in capital allocation, and ongoing execution of our strategic plan."   Berkshire Hathaway is Axalta's biggest shareholder, with a 10.3% stake now worth $727.7 million, according to CNBC's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. That's fairly small by Berkshire standings, coming in as the 30th largest stake by market value out of the 47 publicly-traded U.S. securities in Berkshire's most recent SEC disclosure. Buffett slips further into fourth place  After losing third place in April on the "real-time" version of Forbes' list of the world's richest people, Warren Buffett has fallen further into fourth place.   With an estimated net worth of $99.9 billion, LVMH's Bernard Arnault is poised to join Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos ($157 billion) and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ($103 billion) in the extremely exclusive club of centibillionaires. (It isn't even a word yet in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, which only goes up to centimillionaires.)   Buffett's current net worth is estimated at $85 billion, $15 billion behind Arnault and $14 billion more than Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's $71 billion.   When the annual Forbes billionaires list was published in early March, Buffett was ahead of Arnault, $82.5 billion to $76 billion.  BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription The New York Law Journal looks at how much of Justin Sun's $4.6 million charity lunch with Buffett may be tax deductible. CNBC's Make It lists "2 simple ways Warren Buffett decides what to invest in." Inc. headlines "Warren Buffett Says 1 Decision in Life Separates Successful People From All the Rest." And The Onion (a satirical web site) has this: "Warren Buffett Tells Colleagues About Exciting Investment Opportunity He Recently Discovered Selling Mary Kay Beauty Products."  BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares closed at $309,000 Friday, up 2.0% over the previous four weeks, and up 7.8% from one year ago. Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares closed at $206.21, up 2.2% over the previous four weeks, and up 9.2% from one year ago. The benchmark S&P 500 index closed at 2950.46, up 4.4% over the previous four weeks, and up 7.1% from one year ago. BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS    Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices. The number of shares held is as of March 31, 2019, as disclosed in the company's May 15 13F SEC filing.   USG Corporation (USG) was listed in the 13-F filing (39,002,016 shares) but is not included in this table because the stock is no longer trading following the April completion of the company's acquisition by Knauf.   The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.   QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send us any questions or comments about the newsletter to us at buffett@cnbc.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)   If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.    Unsubscribe Manage Newsletters Terms of Service   Digital Products Feedback Privacy Policy   © 2019 CNBC LLC. All rights reserved. A property of NBCUniversal. 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes and Market Data and Analysis. Data also provided by THOMSON REUTERS