Warren Buffett says he sold all his global stocks at a huge loss

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Warren Buffett says he sold all of his shares in Paramount Global at a significant loss.

Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting today in Omaha, Nebraska, the billionaire investor took full ownership of the bad deal. Despite speculation to the contrary, he said, “It was 100% my decision” to invest in Paramount in 2022. “We sold everything and lost a significant amount of money. That happens in this business.” (Watch a clip of it above.)

As of the end of 2023, Berkshire owned 63.3 million Class B shares, or non-voting shares, which were worth about $800 million at the time. The stake, which represents about 10.1% of the company’s stock, helped boost the stock when Buffett initially invested in 2022. He then went on to make public comments criticizing companies seeking to follow Netflix into subscription streaming, a group that includes Paramount, given the economic conditions. . For the emerging sector.

Buffett, known as the Oracle of Omaha, has made a lot of mistakes during his decades of investing. Buffett said that owning Paramount stock “made me think more deeply and more seriously about the whole question of what people do in their spare time and what the governing principles are for running an entertainment business of any kind.” “I think I’m smarter than I was a year or two ago,” he added dryly, “but I also think I’m poorer because I acquired knowledge the way I did.”

Paramount’s Class B shareholders have recently been upset over the company’s merger negotiations with Skydance Media due to dilution concerns. Shari Redstone controls approximately 80% of the voting shares, or Class A, in the company and has favored a two-step all-stock deal with Skydance. The exclusive negotiating window between the two companies ended at midnight Friday and a special committee of the board met today to consider an alternative proposal to an all-cash merger of Sony Pictures Entertainment and private equity giant Apollo. This initial deal costs $26 billion and all shareholders will likely pay a premium.

Wall Street generally approved of the Sony/Apollo deal, but Redstone was more reluctant to embrace it because it would likely involve breaking up the company and merging Paramount’s film studio with Sony’s. Redstone’s father, Sumner Redstone, viewed Paramount Pictures, which he acquired after a fierce battle with Barry Diller, as the centerpiece of his media empire.