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BEIJING, February 9  (TMTPOST)— Legendary billionaire investor Warren Buffett has continued to unwind its long position in BYD Co, China’s No.1 electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer, since his company started selldown five months ago.  

Source: Visual China

Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold about 4.24 million Hong Kong-listed BYD shares at an the average price of HK$257.9 (US$32.9) apiece on February 3 , decreasing the company’s holding of BYD total H shares from 12.9% to 11.87%, according to a filing with the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX) Thursday.

This is Berkshire’s second offloading made public this month and the ninth move during the past five months. The investment company has cashed out a total of more than HK$15 billion through the sales of over 77 million shares, more than a third of its BYD position in last July. It disclosed in August about sales of 1.33 million shares, its first stake reduction since acquiring BYD in September, 2008. It soon dropped more than 1.7 million shares till early September, and unveiled in November three deals, reducing about 12.30 million stakes in BYD.

Despite Buffett’s sales, BYD shares closed about 3.1% higher on Thursday, bringing its surge so far this year to more than 27% following a decline of 28% last year. The investment in BYD has paid off a lot for Berkshire since it first bought BYD shares at an average of HK$8 per share in 2008, with an investment of $230 million.

Earlier this month, a number of prominent Chinese electric vehicle (EV) makers posted deliveries at a pace much less than a year earlier, highlighting challenging environment following the national new energy vehicle (NEV) purchase subsidy policy expired at the end of 2022.

As the largest EV manufacturer in the world by sales in 2022, BYD sold 151,341 vehicles in January, while the 62.44% year-over-year (YoY) growth significantly slowed down as it had maintained triple-digit monthly growth in sales in the whole year of 2022.

China’s retail sales of NEV in January dropped 48.3% from the previous month and the YoY growth turned negative to-6.3%, suggesting the biggest decline in record, according to data from China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) on Wednesday. The auto industry body found that all the China’s home-grown EV companies posted monthly decline in sales while Tesla maintained increase.

However, Tesla’s results were at the cost of price war. It slashed price by up to 13% in China on January 6 to make a range of starting prices of Model Y and Model 3 sold in the country down to new low, about 43% and 30% cheaper than those on sale in U.S. Less than a week later, Tesla lowered prices across the U.S. Europe, the Middle East and Africa by as much as 20% on January 12, expanding its price war globally.