(Bloomberg) — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold 164.4 billion yen ($1.2 billion) of bonds on Friday, just days after the billionaire investor made headlines by saying he had increased his holdings in Japanese trading houses. .
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The U.S. conglomerate’s five-part bond deal included notes for up to three years, according to an email from Mizuho Securities Co., one of the deal’s joint brokers. The longest term, maturing in 2053, has an annual interest rate of 2.325%.
Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest issuers of yen debt abroad. It attracted investors with stronger credit ratings from Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings than those given by credit advisers to the Japanese sovereign.
While yen corporate bond credit spreads have risen this year on bets that the Bank of Japan will tighten monetary policy under new Governor Kazuo Ueda, total corporate borrowing costs remain some of the lowest in the world. world.
Proceeds from the offering will be used for general corporate purposes, including refinancing part of the debt, the issuer said in a statement earlier this month. A 56.3 billion yen bond from Berkshire Hathaway matures on Friday.
The American company, which Buffett took control of in 1965, surprised Japanese markets in 2020 when it bought shares in local trading companies after pricing one of the largest yen bond offerings from a foreign issuer.
Shares of Japan’s major trading houses rose on Tuesday after Buffett told the Nikkei newspaper that Berkshire had increased its stake in them to 7.4% from around 5% in 2020. Buffett said he was “very proud.” of the investments, in a published transcript of the interview. .
He added that while he has no stake in other major Japanese companies, “there are always a few I’m thinking about,” Nikkei reported.
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