Warren Buffett.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has scored a nearly 19-fold gain on Coca-Cola stock.
- The investor’s company has more than tripled its money on Bank of America stock.
- The two positions are worth a combined $75 billion, including $59 billion in unrealized gains.
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Warren Buffett’s Apple wager may be stealing the show this year, but two of the investor’s other big positions are also paying off. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO has racked up an almost 1,800% gain on Coca-Cola stock, and tripled his money on Bank of America stock.
Coca-Cola
Berkshire spent $1.3 billion to amass its 400 million Coca-Cola shares — a position it hasn’t touched in 27 years. Coca-Cola’s stock price has climbed 2% this year to a near-record high of about $61, valuing Berkshire’s stake at $24.2 billion — an almost 19-fold gain.
Buffett, who drinks five cans of Coke a day, has been rewarded for his long-term ownership of the stock in other ways. For one, Berkshire’s stake in Coca-Cola has grown from 7.8% to 9.3%, purely due to the beverage giant’s share buybacks over the years.
Moreover, Berkshire’s yearly dividends from Coca-Cola have ballooned from $88 million in 1995 to $672 million last year, meaning the conglomerate makes its money back on the position every two years.
“Time is the friend of the wonderful business,” Buffett wrote about the bet in his 2011 shareholder letter.
Bank of America
Berkshire originally invested $5 billion in Bank of America in 2011, when the Wall Street stalwart was struggling during the US sovereign-debt crisis. Most recently, it plowed $2.1 billion into the lender in the summer of 2020.
Bank of America’s stock price has roughly doubled since then to a 14-year high of around $49, boosting the value of Berkshire’s latest tranche of shares to $4.2 billion.
Moreover, Berkshire’s total position of 1 billion shares has soared in value to $50.5 billion. The company’s total cost base was $14.6 billion, meaning it has more than tripled its money on paper.
Berkshire’s Bank of America and Coca-Cola holdings are worth a combined $75 billion today, including about $59 billion in unrealized gains. That doesn’t quite rival its roughly $120 billion gain on Apple, but it’s far from chump change.
Read more: Warren Buffett has a $80 billion headache when stocks and businesses are this expensive. Here’s a look at the investor’s big dilemma — and the unhappy compromise he’s made.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
