By The Sizemore Letter<\/u><\/p>\n
It\u2019s that time again.\u00a0 Warren Buffett<\/a>\u2019s Berkshire Hathaway (<\/span>BRK-A<\/a>)<\/span><\/b>\u00a0released its quarterly 13F filing today, which details stock by stock what Buffett and his managers have been buying and selling.<\/p>\n At the top of the list?\u00a0 A 17.8-million-share position in Suncor Energy (<\/span>SU<\/a>)<\/span>,<\/b> Canada\u2019s biggest oil and gas producer.\u00a0 Suncor is a major producer in the Alberta oil sands, and this purchase is consistent with Buffett\u2019s overall belief in a North American industrial renaissance.<\/p>\n Next is Dish Network (<\/span>DISH<\/a>)<\/span>,<\/b> the satellite television provider. Berkshire Hathaway added 547,312 shares of Dish, worth about $24 million.\u00a0 The relatively small size of the acquisition indicates it was probably made by one of Buffett\u2019s lieutenants and not the Sage himself.\u00a0 Still, given that Buffett\u2019s two managers\u2014Todd Combs and Ted Weschler\u2014are front runners to take control of Berkshire Hathaway\u2019s portfolio once Buffett eventually retires, the move is worth noting.<\/p>\n Dish is an odd addition for Berkshire Hathaway given that archrival DirecTV (<\/span>DTV<\/a>)<\/span><\/b> is already in the portfolio and has been for a few years now.\u00a0 It\u2019s even stranger when you consider the high drama surrounding Dish and its CEO Charlie Ergen and its failed bid to purchase Sprint (<\/span>S<\/a>)<\/span><\/b> and Clearwire for their spectrum assets.<\/p>\n Ergen had grand ambitions of using Sprint\u2019s bandwidth to create something of a wireless empire that would have included paid TV, phone service, and wireless internet\u2026which sounds great, except that he would have been entering an already crowded market in all three services.\u00a0 And in any event, he got outbid.<\/p>\n Buffett is not known for endorsing great jumps into the unknown. Dish seems an odd addition to a generally conservative, staid portfolio.\u00a0 It\u2019s highly-indebted, not particularly cheap, and operates in an industry in the middle of a transformation with a very uncertain outcome.\u00a0 I\u2019m left scratching my head on this one.<\/p>\n In addition to Dish and Suncor, Buffett massively increased his position in General Motors (<\/span>GM<\/a>)<\/span><\/b>, adding about 60% to a position now worth $1.4 billion.\u00a0 Like Suncor, this move is more in line with Buffett\u2019s belief in America\u2019s industrial future.\u00a0 It\u2019s also an established player in an old-line industry trading for a reasonable price.\u00a0 Classic Buffett.<\/p>\n And what did Buffett sell?<\/p>\n He cut his positions in packaged foods companies Kraft Foods (<\/span>KRFT<\/a>)<\/span><\/b> and Mondelez (<\/span>MDLZ<\/a>)<\/span><\/b> to nearly zero.<\/p>\n Until his next letter to shareholders comes out, we\u2019re left to speculate as to why Buffett unloaded these two.\u00a0 My guess is simply that he wanted to free up cash for another big purchase.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE\u00a0<\/b><\/a>to\u00a0Sizemore Insights<\/em>\u00a0via e-mail today.<\/p>\n