Berkshire’s Japanese Stock Holdings Exceed $30 Billion

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The total value of the five Japanese “commercial houses“Berkshire Hathaway’s stock portfolio has surpassed $30 billion in recent weeks and Warren Buffett is apparently still buying.

Berkshire had already been building its positions for twelve months when Buffett initially revealed holdings of about 5% each on August 30, 2020, his 90th birthday.

At that time, the total value of the five positions was approximately $6.3 billion.

It’s up 392% to $31.0 billion today, as Berkshire bought more over the years and the stock rose between 227% and 551%.

The total could be even higher because some additional purchases may not have yet been disclosed.

We know that Warren Buffett has contributed to what was already a tremendously successful investment, with public recognition recently that two of the holdings exceeded 10%.

One of the two, Mitsuidetailed this week exactly how many shares Berkshire owns.

In a Press release Thursday, the company relayed news from Berkshire that its subsidiary National Indemnity owned 292,044,900 shares as of September 30.

As of Friday’s close, they were valued at about $7.1 billion.

That’s a 10.1% stake, making Nation Indemnity its largest shareholder.

It is also a 2.3% increase from 285,401,400 shares, a 9.7% stake, reported in March.

This week’s press release is a continuation of the one issued two weeks ago by Mitsui in which he said was “informed” by Berkshire that “they now hold 10% or more of the voting rights in Mitsui” but were not told the exact number of shares Berkshire owned.

At the end of August, Mitsubishi reported Berkshire had said its stake had increased to 10.2%, up from 9.7% in March.

We haven’t heard anything since March about Berkshire’s other three Japanese holdings, Itochu, Marubeniand Sumitomobut it would not be a surprise to learn that these shares also exceeded 10%.

In 2020, Buffett promised companies that he would not increase Berkshire’s holdings above 10% without permission.

In your annual letter to shareholders released in February, however, Buffett wrote: “As we approach this limit, the five companies have agreed to moderately relax the ceiling.”

As a result, he said: “Over timeyou’ll probably see Berkshire’s ownership of all five increase a bit.”

In 2023, Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick that he was first attracted to stocks in 2020 because “they were selling at a price that I thought was ridiculous, especially the price compared to the prevailing interest rates at the time.”

This year, he told shareholders Berkshire will hold them for “50 years or forever.”

Some links may require a subscription:

Berkshire’s top holdings of publicly traded stocks in the US, Japan and Hong Kong, by market value, based on today’s closing prices.

Participations are as of June 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway 13F Filing on August 14, 2025, except:

The complete list of current market caps and holdings is available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, we don’t direct questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

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Additionally, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. are collected here on the Berkshire website.

– Alex Crippen, editor, Warren Buffett Watch