Filed under: Movers and shakers, Investments, Activist investing

Yesterday after the market close, we got to see the full reporting of Warren Buffett and his Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) holdings. Interestingly enough, the Oracle of Omaha disclosed that he had had bought two European pharmaceutical giants.

His stake in GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) was 1.51 million shares (other holdings), or some $76.1 million listed as of December 31, 2007. His stake in Sanofi-Aventis (NSE: SNY) was 3.569 million shares, or some $162.5 million listed as of December 31, 2007. (Click here for Buffett’s other holdings.) GlaxoSmithKline shares are up 1.8% at $44.10 today, and Sanofi-Aventis shares are actually down 0.4%.

But when you start looking through the entire holdings lists, you’ll notice that these are quite small stakes for Mr. Buffett. What is possible is that this is one of his smaller test-buys or that one of his three underlings in the race for “who will replace Buffett as chief” made the purchases. The holding and insurance giant has gradually been diversifying overseas with acquisitions and dealings in Israel and South Korea.

It looks like the market is taking a wait and see attitude. Both of these stocks have market capitalizations of over $100 billion, so you can tell that these stakes are too small to even make a dent so far. If he starts buying more shares on the local markets rather than the US ADRs, then that might start to be a different story.

Jon Ogg is a partner and editor of 247WallSt.com.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2008 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Investments and Raising Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.