LONDON â€" Berkshire Hathaway took a stake valued at $3.45 billion in Exxon Mobil in the third quarter, the latest major addition to the portfolio controlled by the legendary value investor Warren E. Buffett, according to a regulatory filing late Thursday.
Berkshire owned roughly 40 million shares of Exxon Mobil at the end of September, representing less than 1 percent of the energy company’s 4.4 billion outstanding shares, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
During the quarter, Berkshire also reduced its position in oil firm ConocoPhillips by about 10.5 million shares. At the end of the quarter, Berkshire retained a stake of about 13.5 million shares in ConocoPhillips valued at $938 million.
Over all, Berkshire’s portfolio of companies, which include large investments in names like Coca-Cola, IBM and American Express, was valued at about $92 billion at the end of the third quarter. The value of Berkshire’s holdings were $89.03 billion at the end of the second quarter, according to their S.E.C. filing.
News of the investment comes as Exxon Mobil, the largest American oil company, has moved to bring more oil-and-gas development projects on line to take advantage of higher prices, but its refining margins have been pressured by increased capacity in the industry.
Exxon Mobil, based in Irving, Tex, reported last month that its third-quarter earnings declined 18 percent to $7.9 billion.
The S.E.C. filing does not indicate whether Mr. Buffett himself or others at his firm, based in Omaha, Neb., made the decision to acquire Exxon Mobil shares.
Mr. Buffett, Berkshire’s chairman and chief executive, has said he tends to make the firm’s bigger bets while other executives manage smaller investment positions.
