Warren Buffett is no longer in charge, but Berkshire's latest purchase is right from his playbook

Warren Buffett is no longer in charge, but Berkshire's latest purchase is right from his playbook

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Theron Mohamed

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Warren Buffett's retirement hasn't distracted Berkshire Hathaway from doing what he did best — snapping up beaten-down stocks.

The legendary investor's conglomerate has nearly doubled its stake in homebuilder Lennar since the end of June, regulatory filings show.

Buffett, 96, departed as CEO at the turn of this year and stepped down as chairman on September 18.

Three days later, Berkshire revealed it owned more than 10% of Lennar, after boosting its total amount of Class A and Class B shares from about 13.4 million at the end of June to 21.5 million on September 17.

Berkshire disclosed in subsequent filings that as of Friday, it holds about 25.4 million shares, for a nearly 11% stake valued at around $2.1 billion. It spent about $349 million on Lennar stock between September 17 and 25, the disclosures show.

The conglomerate — which owns businesses such as Geico and Fruit of the Loom and holds large stakes in public companies such as Apple and American Express — established its stake in Lennar in the first half of last year.

The bet fits smoothly within Buffett's signature value-investing framework. Lennar shares have slumped 21% this year to about $82, less than half their peak price two years ago.

The nation's second-largest homebuilder has been hit by a cooling US housing market. The war in Iran has rekindled inflation fears and ratcheted up borrowing costs, exacerbating an affordability crisis for prospective homebuyers.

Buffett became one of history's most successful investors by buying stocks and businesses at bargain prices then holding them for the long term, garnering him enormous returns on his money.

While running Berkshire from 1965 through 2025, the company's stock price rose by 6,100,000%, trouncing the benchmark S&P 500's 46,000% total return over the same period.

It's worth noting that Lennar is a small position within Berkshire's roughly $300 billion stock portfolio. The size of the bet suggests that Berkshire's investment manager, Ted Weschler, is behind it rather than Buffett himself, likely with the approval of new CEO Greg Abel.

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Theron Mohamed

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Theron Mohamed is a London-based correspondent on the International team at Business Insider. His coverage spans finance, investing, wealth, markets, and the economy.Theron joined BI in 2019 as a reporter at Markets Insider and rose to the rank of correspondent before moving to the Trending team then the broader International team. He previously covered tech, media, and telecom stocks for Investors Chronicle magazine and had a brief stint on the Financial Times' Data team. He interned at the Wall Street Journal in New York where he primarily wrote for Heard on the Street.Theron has freelanced for The Independent, The Telegraph, WIRED, and several smaller publications. He holds an undergraduate degree in geography from the London School of Economics, and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.Theron often covers Warren Buffett, Michael Burry, and other elite investors. He also writes about the world's wealthiest people and shares financial advice from all manner of rich and successful people.Email Theron at [email protected] and follow him on X @theron_mohamed.

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• Stocks
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• Housing Market