Billionaire investor Buffett offloads Bank of America shares worth $982 million in latest sale

(Reuters) - Billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has sold some more shares of Bank of America over the past few days, raking in $981.9 million, as the conglomerate continues to trim down its stake in the second-largest U.S. lender.

Berkshire has now shed about $5.4 billion worth of Bank of America shares in a string of sales since mid-July.

The conglomerate sold about 24.7 million shares of the lender between Aug. 23 and Aug. 27, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

Shares of Bank of America were down 0.5% in premarket trading on Wednesday. They have fallen 4.8% over the last month, compared with a 1.7% fall in the KBW Bank Index.

Buffett, one of the world's most revered investors, started investing in Bank of America in 2011, when Berkshire purchased $5 billion of preferred stock.

The 93-year-old's investment in the lender came at a time when some investors were worried about the bank's capital needs.

The stake sales mark a turnaround from last year when Buffett singled out Bank of America and its CEO Brian Moynihan for praise.

"I like Brian Moynihan enormously," Buffett told CNBC in April 2023. "I don't wanna sell it."

After the latest stake sale, Berkshire still remains the bank's largest shareholder, owning 903.8 million shares, worth $35.85 billion based on Tuesday's closing price.

(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)