Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK.ABRK.B on Friday announced ownership of 14,166,748 shares, or 11.3%, of StoneCo Ltd. STNE, a financial technology company, which he purchased at its October IPO.
Despite Buffett’s involvement, the stock declined 1.19% on Friday to $27.37 per share. It is down 11.64% from its opening price at $32.
The company, based in Brazil, is a cloud-based online payments processor founded in 2012. The company booked revenue of $76.7 million for the six months ended June 30, an increase from $43.3 million reported in the same period last year. Net income totaled $22.5 million, compared to a net loss of $55.70 million a year prior.
StoneCo also ended the year’s first half with $37.9 million in cash on its balance sheet, along with $546.4 million in long-term debt.
It raised $1.5 billion in its IPO on Oct. 29, according to Reuters, with shares priced at $24 each, valuing it at $8.88 billion. Berkshire joins Alibaba (BABA) founder Jack Ma as an investor in the company. Ma purchased $100 million in the IPO.
It also expands Berkshire’s interest in mobile payments companies. It took a stake in One97 Communications Ltd., the owner of India’s Paytm, in August, with Buffett’s deputy investor Todd Combs joining the board of the company.
A Buffett friend also appeared in the Stone Co investing mix – Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital, with whom he partnered in to purchase H.J. Heinz and merge it with Kraft Foods to create The Kraft Heinz Co. KHC in 2015.
Buffett has a longstanding interest in the financial sector, which makes up 40.5% of his U.S. stock portfolio. His stakes include major credit card companies Visa Inc. V, Mastercard Inc. (MA) and American Express AXP, his third-largest holding in the space. His largest financial positions are in Wells Fargo WFC and Bank of America BAC.
See Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)'s portfolio here.
