Buffett-led Berkshire places its Amazon bet at $860.6 million

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. revealed that its new Amazon.com bet totaled $860.6 million at the end of March.

The size of the holding, an investment made by one of Buffett’s deputies, gives more clarity to the wager that Buffett disclosed days before his annual shareholders meeting this month. Berkshire also spent the first three months of the year ramping up bets on JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Red Hat Inc., and paring investments in Southwest Airlines Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., according to a regulatory filing Wednesday.

The Amazon holding underscores the growing influence of Buffett’s investing deputies, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who have been involved in Berkshire bets on airlines and Apple Inc. Buffett has praised the pair, and Berkshire vice chairman Charles Munger has credited the two with bringing “younger eyes” to Berkshire’s strategy. While Buffett has long admired Jeff Bezos, he’s typically steered clear of technology giants, disclosing a stake in Apple just three years ago.

Berkshire has deepened its ties with Amazon in recent years. The companies teamed up with JPMorgan Chase to form a health care venture, led by Atul Gawande, that will focus on improving services and costs for their employees. Combs, also a member of JPMorgan’s board, has played a role in the formation of that venture.

Buffett’s company has waded deeper into the technology space in recent years. The company disclosed a wager on software company Red Hat last year, and boosted that investment by 22 percent in the first three months of 2019. The investment has proven to be a timely bet, as IBM agreed in October to purchase the company for $33 billion.

Other key takeaways from Berkshire’s 13F filing Wednesday:

• Buffett’s company has deepened some of its bets on banks in recent months. Berkshire boosted its wager on PNC Financial Services Group Inc., and its stake in JPMorgan climbed 19 percent in the first three months of the year to 59.5 million shares valued at $6.02 billion at the end of the quarter.

• Berkshire didn’t boost all its bets on financial firms. Its Wells Fargo holding dropped 4 percent to 409.8 million shares. Buffett has said he prefers to keep some bets below a 10 percent ownership threshold, which has sometimes been a driving force in cutting certain stakes.

• Berkshire’s bets on airlines diverged