Investing.com -- Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) has unloaded more stock in Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), extending a run of stake reductions in the US lender.
According to a regulatory filing, Berkshire sold almost 8.7 million shares in Bank of America worth $370 million as of Oct. 15.
The move comes after Berkshire offloaded 9.5 million shares for $382.4 million last week -- a decision that brought its stake in Bank of America below a key 10% threshold. Now that its holdings are under this mark, Berkshire is no longer required to provide regular statements on its interest in the company.
Nebraska-based Berkshire has been reducing its stake in Bank of America since July, when it first sold around 33.9 million shares for roughly $1.48 billion. It has since raked in over $10 billion from the sales, according to Reuters calculations.
Buffett, 94, has not publicly explained why Berkshire has been ratcheting down its interest in Bank of America, although he has praised the company in the past. The billionaire investor first purchased $5 billion in preferred stock and warrants in Bank of America in 2011 as part of a bid to bolster confidence in the lender following the subprime mortgage crisis. He converted that stake into common shares several years later after Bank of America announced an uptick in its dividend.
When recently asked about Berkshire's divestitures, Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said that he is not in a position to speak to Buffett about the matter.
"I don't know what exactly he is doing because frankly we can't ask," Moynihan previously said. However, he described Buffett as a "great" investor for the business.
Moynihan has also noted that the market is continuing to absorb Berkshire's unloaded stock, including through the bank's own repurchasing.
(Reuters contributed reporting.)