Berkshire Hathaway's successor has started using massive cash reserves! In the second quarter, Berkshire (BRK.A.US, BRK.B.US) increased its holdings in Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL.US) and Alphabet (GOOGL.US) with a net purchase of nearly $20 billion in stocks.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A.US, BRK.B.US) further increased its holdings in Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL.US) and Alphabet Inc. Class C parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.US) in the second quarter. With Greg Abel succeeding Warren Buffett as CEO, this investment giant has begun to gradually deploy its massive cash reserves to ramp up stock investments and acquisitions. According to regulatory documents submitted by Berkshire on Friday, in the second complete quarter after Abel took over as CEO, the company purchased an additional 17.5 million shares of Delta Air Lines, Inc. By the end of June, the value of Berkshire's shares in Delta Air Lines, Inc. had reached $5.37 billion. Meanwhile, Berkshire significantly increased its stake in Alphabet, acquiring an additional 48.1 million shares in the second quarter. As of mid-year, its holdings in Alphabet were valued at $37.8 billion, making Alphabet Berkshire's third-largest stock holding. When Berkshire announced its second-quarter earnings, it disclosed that the net buyback in stocks for the quarter was nearly $20 billion, alongside approximately $4.5 billion spent on share repurchases. This marks a clear change in Berkshire's capital allocation strategy. With the expansion of investments and buybacks, Berkshire's cash reserves have also begun to decline. As of the end of June, the company held $365.5 billion in cash, a decrease of $31.5 billion from the record high of $397 billion at the end of March, although the overall cash level remains historically high. In the last few years under Buffett's leadership, Berkshire had been relatively cautious in its large investments and acquisition activities, often citing overvalued market conditions. However, since Abel took over, the company has pushed for several billion-dollar transactions in the second quarter, indicating a more aggressive deployment of the cash that Berkshire has accumulated over the years. Among the significant moves, Berkshire spent $6.8 billion to acquire homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home, continuing the company's long-preferred value investment approach, which was completed last month. On the other hand, Berkshire also invested $10 billion in Alphabet to support its AI-related investments. For a company that has historically had a more traditional investment style, this indicates a shift towards allocating more capital to emerging fields like AI. Overall, from substantially increasing its holdings in Alphabet and Delta Air Lines, Inc., to nearly $20 billion in net stock purchases and $4.5 billion in share repurchases, and advancing large acquisitions and AI-related investments, Berkshire under Abel is gradually accelerating its capital deployment pace. Although the company still holds over $360 billion in cash, its investment strategy has become noticeably more aggressive compared to the cautious approach of previous years.