By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – Ajit Jain, a longtime insurance executive at Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, sold more than half of his Class A shares in the conglomerate this week.
According to a regulatory filing dated Wednesday night, Jain, 73, sold 200 shares of Berkshire Class A stock on Sept. 9 for about $139.1 million, at an average price of $695.418 per share.
The sale included 104 shares held directly by Jain and 96 shares held by family trusts. No reason was given for the sale.
Berkshire did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Jain sold his shares five days after Berkshire's stock price topped $727,000, and less than two weeks after its market value topped $1 trillion for the first time.
Berkshire has slowed its share buybacks and increased its cash position to a record $277 billion.
Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research who rates Berkshire a “buy,” said Jain's sale likely has to do with his personal circumstances rather than his view of Berkshire's prospects.
“Those of us who have been following Berkshire Hathaway for a while suspect that there is a changing of the guard in the insurance industry,” she said. “I have a feeling that he may be moving on, and I suspect that is the reason for his stock sales.”
Jain still manages 166 Class A shares, of which 61 are held directly by him and 105 are held by the trusts and his non-profit Jain Foundation.
He also manages 124,308 Berkshire Class B shares, which is equivalent to approximately 83 Class A shares held by the foundation.
Jain, born in India, joined Berkshire in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1986. He led the company's expansion into reinsurance, specializing in pricing large risks such as natural catastrophes.
Buffett has credited Jain with adding tens of billions of dollars in shareholder value, once saying that if he, Jain and former Vice Chairman Charlie Munger were in a sinking boat and only one could be saved, they would “swim to Ajit.”
Greg Abel, 62, Berkshire's other vice chairman, is expected to eventually succeed Buffett, 94, as CEO.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
