Berkshire boosts its bet on Monsanto

WARREN Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway boosted its bet on Monsanto as the company moved closer to completing a takeover by Germany’s Bayer.

Berkshire increased its stake in the the world’s biggest seed company by 62 percent to 19 million shares, which were worth $2.2 billion at the end of the first quarter, it said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday. The filing misspells Monsanto’s name as Mosanto.

Bayer seems all but set to take over Monsanto this quarter as it wraps up final regulatory approvals.

Bayer’s chief executive Werner Baumann said earlier this month the company was “very confident” about closing the deal before the end of June and Monsanto executives, including chief executive Hugh Grant, have already announced intentions to depart following the $66 billion (R822bn) transaction’s closing.

A wave of consolidation is leaving the seed and crop chemicals industry with a handful of megacompanies. Bayer-Monsanto is seeking antitrust clearance after two previous deals – the combination of Dow Chemical and DuPont and China National Chemical’s takeover of Syngenta – have received it.

The filing included details on Berkshire’s increased stake in Apple and the exit of its bet on International Business Machines, which Buffett had previously disclosed. Berkshire owns 240 million shares of Apple, according to Tuesday’s filing.

Buffett praised Apple at his annual shareholder meeting this month for the company’s “incredible” consumer product. He’s lauded Apple chief executive Tim Cook for his capital deployment skills and has said he’d be glad if Berkshire’s stake in the technology company climbs even higher because of share buybacks.

Buffett finished cutting his stake in IBM as he reversed his call on the company, which he said last year ran into “tough” competitors. Berkshire held just about 2 million shares of IBM at the end of 2017, down from about 65 million shares in the first quarter of 2017.

Berkshire more than doubled its stake in Israeli drug maker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which it first took last year. Saddled with debt, Teva has been cutting its workforce and closing factories. – Bloomberg