Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sells shares in Chinese EV maker BYD for the first time in 14 years - and rakes in a 3,400% profit

Warren Buffett and BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu. AP

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold 1.3 million shares of Chinese EV maker BYD for $47 million.
• Buffett's company teased the disposal by listing its BYD stake on a clearing-house system in July.
• Berkshire invested in 2008, and its unrealized gain on the Chinese company is over $7 billion.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has trimmed its BYD stake for the first time in 14 years, a Hong Stock Exchange filing revealed Tuesday.

The famed investor's conglomerate sold about 1.3 million shares of the Chinese electric-vehicle maker for around $47 million last week. The disposals reduced its position from 220 million shares to 218.7 million shares, the filing shows.

Berkshire originally spent $232 million for 225 million BYD shares in 2008, and reported that position was intact at the end of December. It's unclear why it was listed as 220 million shares prior to this month's sale.

Buffett's company paid about $1 per share when it first invested in BYD. It just sold less than 1% of its stake at an average price of $35, representing a roughly 3,400% profit on those shares. Its remaining shares were valued at around $7.3 billion as of Tuesday's close, meaning the company has notched an unrealized gain of over $7 billion on its investment.

Berkshire foreshadowed its sale by listing its entire stake in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's clearing-house system, CCASS, on July 12. The move sparked speculation that Buffett and his team were preparing to pocket some of their BYD profits, which has now proven to be correct.

Buffett, who has largely stuck to investing in American businesses such as Apple and Coca-Cola throughout his career, was initially hesitant to invest in a Chinese company. He took the plunge after his business partner, Charlie Munger, hailed BYD CEO Wang Chuanfu as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Bill Gates in a single person.

Munger, Berkshire's vice-chairman, has trumpeted the automaker many times over the years.

"I have never in my life felt more privileged to be associated with something than I feel about BYD," he said during Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting in 2009.

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