wang chuanfu the cofounder and chief executive of byd saw his wealth tumble by almost 2 billion after warren buffett’s berkshire hathaway trimmed its stake in the chinese electric car maker for the first time since investing in the shenzhenbased company in 2008 shares of byd tanked amid speculation that more stock sales could be on the way the hong konglisted byd plunged almost 12 on wednesday after a regulatory filing to the city’s stock exchange showed that berkshire hathaway has reduced its ownership to 1992 from 2004 the omahabased investment firm gained 47 million when it sold 133 million shares on august 24 at an average price of hk277 apiece according to the filing kenny ng a hong kongbased securities strategist at everbright securities says the possibility of further sales is high speculation that buffett’s firm would cut berkshire hathaway’s position in byd has been mounting since last month when a tranche of shares matching the size of the us firm’s holding in byd entered hong kong’s central clearing and settlement system “warren buffett bought into the company when it was trading at only around hk8 per share ” ng says “byd’s current value is not cheap and buffett is making a very good return from this investment” headed by billionaire wang byd now has a forward pricetoearnings ratio of 74 times berkshire hathaway which invested roughly 230 million to acquire 225 million byd shares more than a decade ago has seen the chinese company grow to become a leader in the country’s booming electric car market the value of the rest of berkshire hathaway’s holding in the meantime has surged to 66 billion based on the stock’s current price and just two days ago byd reported stellar results for the first half of 2022 thanks to a highly integrated business model where the company produces its own batteries and other auto parts used in electric cars it was able to shrug off lockdown pains and keep manufacturing lines across china humming the company sold 641350 cars for the first six months of the year a 315 surge from the same period a year ago revenue jumped 657 yearonyear to 1506 billion yuan 218 billion while net profit soared by more than 200 to 530 million vincent sun a shenzhenbased analyst at morningstar equity research says his view on byd’s fundamentals remains unchanged and he has a price target of hk315 for the stock sun also mentioned that when berkshire hathaway reduced its stake in petrochina back in 2007 the firm did so in multiple rounds over a period of several months berkshire hathaway may choose to cut its holding in byd by a small percentage overtime says dickie wong executive director of hong kongbased kingston securities but the company may also choose to retain part of its ownership instead of dumping the entire position as china’s ev sector could well continue to grow “byd is one of the key players that can compete with tesla” wong says “they berkshire hathaway may only sell partially at this stage” but any sale would continue to hurt investor confidence “berkshire hathaway’s ownership reduction doesn’t necessarily mean byd’s value has peaked” says everbright securities’s ng “but it is a longterm value investor and its sale for sure exerts a negative impact on market sentiment” wang cofounded byd as a battery maker in 1995 and ventured into the auto sector in 2003 he currently holds a 176 stake in byd that makes up the bulk of his of 222 billion fortune according to forbes’ realtime data