Berkshire Hathaway Inc. boosted its stake in DirecTV and added holdings of Liberty Media Corp. and DaVita Inc. after billionaire Warren Buffett hired stock picker Ted Weschler to help manage investments.
Weschler oversaw investments in all three firms while running Peninsula Capital Advisors LLC, the hedge fund he wound down after agreeing to join Omaha-based Berkshire.
Buffett, 81, hired Todd Combs and Weschler to help him pick stocks, saying he would focus on managing Berkshire's largest stock holdings, such as a stake in Wells Fargo & Co., and count on Combs and Weschler to make smaller investments.
In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday, Berkshire reported no holding of Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest energy company, compared with about 420,000 shares of the company at the end of September.
Berkshire had 1.7 million shares of Liberty Media and 2.7 million shares of dialysis-facility owner DaVita.
The stake in DirecTV climbed to 20.3 million shares from about 4.2 million at the end of September.
According to a separate filing, Berkshire held about 410 million shares, or 7.7 percent, of Wells Fargo. Buffett reported a stake of about 359 million shares of the lender at the end of 2010, according to his annual report to shareholders for that year.
Berkshire's filings are monitored by analysts and investors for insight into Buffett's strategy. The firm seeks to "increase its ownership of first-class businesses" with a preference for buying them outright, Buffett said in an article posted on Fortune magazine's website last week. When a company can't be purchased, Berkshire seeks to buy equity stakes, he said.
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