Sept 12 (Askume) – Ajit Jain, a longtime insurance executive at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc BRKA.N , sold more than half of his holdings of the company’s Class A shares this week.
Jain, 73, sold 200 shares of Berkshire Class A stock on Sept. 9 for about $139.1 million, an average price of $695,418 per share, according to a regulatory filing late Wednesday.
In the sale, Jain directly holds 104 shares and the family trust holds 96 shares. No reason was given for the sale.
Berkshire did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Jain’s sale came five days after Berkshire’s shares surged above $727,000.It’s been less than two weeks since its market capitalization topped $1 trillion for the first time.
Berkshire has slowed the pace of share buybacks and its cash burn has reached a record $277 billion.
CFRA Research analyst Kathy Seifert, who has a “buy” rating on Berkshire, said Jain’s selling may reflect personal circumstances rather than his view of Berkshire’s prospects.
“Those of us who have been watching Berkshire Hathaway for a long time have suspected that the insurance business might be turning around,” he said. “I think he might be moving on, and I suspect that’s why he’s selling.”
Jain still manages 166 Class A shares, 61 directly and 105 through trusts and his nonprofit Jain Foundation.
He also manages 124,308 shares of Berkshire Class B stock held by the foundation, which is equivalent to about 83 Class A shares.
Jain, who was born in India, joined Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway in 1986 and led the company’s expansion into reinsurance, specializing in pricing large risks such as natural disasters.
Buffett praisedJain has increased shareholder value by billions and has said that if he, Jain, and late vice chairman Charlie Munger were on a sinking ship and only one could be saved, they would “swim to victory.”
Berkshire’s other vice chairman, Greg Abel, 62, will eventually succeed the 94-year-old Buffett as CEO.
