- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway may be doubling down on Japanese stocks.
- The investor's company might be hedging further purchases by issuing yen-denominated bonds.
- Berkshire issued yen debt before revealing its $6 billion bet on Japanese stocks in 2020.
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Warren Buffett may be buying more Japanese stocks, if Berkshire Hathaway's latest disclosure is any indication.
The famed investor revealed stakes worth a combined $6 billion in five Japanese trading companies in August 2020. He made sure to hedge against the Japanese yen falling against the US dollar — Berkshire issued close to $6 billion of yen-denominated debt in the year before it disclosed the new positions.
Buffett's company filed to issue an unspecified amount of yen debt this week. That may indicate it's boosting its stakes in the Japanese quintet of Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo.
"It could be the case that Berkshire is buying more of each of these names, increasing ownership towards 9.9%," James Shanahan, an equity analyst at Edward Jones, told Insider. "This may have been going on already, with Berkshire preferring to keep this activity private."
On the other hand, Buffett might be issuing more yen debt because his Japanese bets have risen in value, and he wants to hedge against the resulting increase in currency exposure, Shanahan noted.
Berkshire's Japanese holdings are worth a combined $8.7 billion today, despite the yen falling 10% against the dollar since August 2020. That significantly exceeds the $7 billion carrying value of Berkshire's yen debt at the last count, Shanahan said, meaning the company isn't fully hedged against currency movements.
Buffett has struggled to find bargains with US stocks near record highs, private equity firms and special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) pricing him out of acquisitions, and Berkshire's rising stock price making share buybacks less attractive.
The investor is also itching to deploy a big chunk of Berkshire's cash reserves, which swelled to a record $149 billion in the third quarter of 2021. Doubling down on Japanese stocks, and capitalizing on a weak yen and cheap financing in the process, may have struck him as the best option available.
"If the portfolio is close to 100% leveraged, Berkshire is effectively holding a portfolio of high-quality Japanese stocks yielding 3.7% on a weighted-average basis, fully funded by debt at an average cost of 0.6%!" Shanahan said.
