Billionaire Warren Buffett and his famous investment company Berkshire Hathaway are now in the Atlanta Braves baseball business. The famous financier has reportedly made “a small investment” in the holding company that essentially owns the team through a bit of corporate zig-zagging, an investment that recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission shed more light on.
According to local Atlanta news station WSB-TV, the SEC filing shows Berkshire Hathaway has acquired a little over 200,000 shares of Atlanta Braves Holding Incorporated stock, for a total of almost $8 million.
Neither Berkshire Hathaway nor the Atlanta Braves have commented publicly on the sale of stock as of this writing, and it’s not even known whether Buffett himself made the purchase, but given he and his company’s approach towards “fundamental” investing, it would appear to be a good sign for the health of the Atlanta Braves as a business entity.
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Interestingly, the investment comes as Berkshire Hathaway has shed stock in many of its other holdings, including General Motors, Procter & Gamble, and Johnson & Johnson, as the firm reportedly seeks to bolster its cash assets. Now, it reports 0 total holdings in either of those companies. The Braves are still in pretty good company though, as the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio is largely made up of shares in companies like fellow Georgian brand Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Amex, and Apple.
You shouldn’t start thinking of Buffett as the owner of the Braves, though. A tweet by sports business specialist Darren Rovell puts the investment in perspective:
“Berkshire Hathaway discloses in filing that it purchased 223,000 shares of BATRK. Ladies and Gentlemen, Warren Buffett’s company now owns 0.35% of the Atlanta Braves.”
The Atlanta Braves Holding Incorporated was established only this year, making the Braves the first publicly traded Major League Baseball team in some 25 years, according to a statement from the team itself.