In recent years, Warren Buffett has had an incredible appetite for buying shares of the San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo. It is now the biggest public investment in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio.
Wells Fargo recently pushed aside the long-standing Coca-Cola, which Berkshire Hathaway began purchasing in late 1987, and finally stopped in 1995. He believed that the true value of Coca-Cola will was not reflected in the share price at the time. Considering the fact that Coke remained the largest holding for Berkshire Hathaway for many years lets us know how well it performed for Buffett and company.
Warren Buffett has been adding to his will far goes holdings for quite a few years. The consistent purchases has prompted it to become Berkshire Hathaway’s largest holding.
Berkshire Hathaway’s last regulatory filing shows us that they added another 17.3 million shares of Wells Fargo during the last quarter. That brings the total holding to 439.8 million shares. Warren Buffett has been the largest shareholder of Wells Fargo for quite some time.
Berkshire Hathaway stake in Wells Fargo is roughly worth around $15.5 billion. The Coca-Cola stake is currently valued at $14.7 billion.
There is no question that Warren Buffett is going to spend some of his time writing about Wells Fargo in the upcoming letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. The letter will be distributed after the market closes on March 1.
Warren Buffett has talked about Wells Fargo being his favorite bank in the past, and regularly mentions the banks low cost of funding. This is a powerful business advantage when the lending money. The chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo, John Strumpf, says he begins his day by reviewing the deposit figures of the bank.
Wells Fargo is currently the fourth largest bank in the United States according to assets. They recently had to relinquish their title of being the most valuable bank back to J.P. Morgan Chase.
Many people still believe that Wells Fargo will eventually be the largest bank in the United States one day.
They made a large step in that direction during 2008 when they purchased walkover you. There were a lot of mortgage woes when they made this deal, but the deal also turned Wells Fargo into a true national bank.
It was surprising to read that an analyst criticized the walkover you purchase as one of Wells Fargo’s recent mistakes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Buffett decides to pick up another few million shares because of the news.