Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway still owns stakes in Starz, DirecTV, Viacom and Liberty Media. They also own a small stake in John Malone’s international cable company, Liberty Global. Berkshire Hathaway also disclosed in a regulatory filing that they sold all of their Dish Network stock.
At the end of 2013, Berkshire Hathaway owned 2.95 million shares of Liberty Global stock, worth roughly $262 million, we learned from a regulatory filing. The company has been acquiring cable operators throughout Europe, and last month even agreed to take over Ziggo, a Dutch firm.
In the meantime, Berkshire also sold off some of their Liberty Media stock, which owns controlling interest in Sirius XM Radio, among other things. By 2013’s end, Berkshire Hathaway shares of Liberty Media were worth $775 million, according to last Friday’s filing.
Berkshire previously owned 547,000 shares of Dish Network, first disclosed last summer. As of this regulatory filing, the company no longer owned shares of the satellite TV provider at the end of 2013. When Berkshire initially reported its stake, the shares were worth $23.3 million. At the end of September of last year, the share amounts were worth $24.6 million.
At the end of 2013, Berkshire’s stake in Viacom went from $636 million at the end of September to $264.3 million by the end of 2013. This took place among continuous gains in stock price.
Berkshire’s shares of Starz dipped in value at the end of 2013. Last September, the shares were worth $158.2 million, but by the end of the year they were only worth $132.8 million. But the company did sell shares within that timeframe. At the end of September, Berkshire owned 5.6 million shares of the cable network, and at the end of the year it only held 4.5 million shares which make up the lesser value.
