Berkshire Hathaway has quietly lightened up on one of its longest-running bank bets, selling off chunks of its stake in Bank of America and reshuffling a corner of its massive stock portfolio. The moves show up in recent regulatory filings and mark a meaningful rebalancing at the Omaha giant as it settles into new leadership. For Charlotte, home base of Bank of America’s corporate center, it is less an operational earthquake and more a reminder that faraway investors can still shake the local story.
What the filings show
Berkshire’s latest quarterly disclosure shows the firm owned about 517.3 million Bank of America shares as of December 31, 2025, a stake valued at roughly $28.45 billion, according to Kiplinger. That position accounted for around 10% of Berkshire’s public-equity portfolio at year-end, keeping BAC in the conglomerate’s top three holdings.
The 13F filings are backward looking, but they make it clear that Berkshire spent the year trimming a very large position in the Charlotte-based bank rather than building it up.
How big were the cuts?
Earlier in the year, Berkshire sold about 37.2 million Bank of America shares, roughly a 6% trim to its stake, according to filings tracked by Quiver Quantitative. By the fourth quarter of 2025, the position had fallen from about 568.07 million shares to roughly 517.3 million by year-end, according to Investing.com.
Taken together, those sales locked in sizable gains and helped bulk up Berkshire’s already hefty cash reserves.
Why Charlotte still matters
Bank of America is headquartered in Uptown Charlotte at the Bank of America Corporate Center at 100 North Tryon Street, and the company lists that address on its investor pages. Institutional-holder tables show Vanguard, BlackRock and Berkshire among the largest outside owners of BAC, according to Bank of America and Fidelity, which underscores that Berkshire still ranks as one of the bank’s biggest investors.
Analysts note that when a marquee shareholder trims a stake, it typically does not change how branches operate or how local teams run the business. What it can change is market sentiment and, in a banking town like Charlotte, the tone of the headlines.
Why Berkshire might be trimming
Market watchers broadly see the reductions as profit taking and portfolio concentration management rather than any broadside against Bank of America’s fundamentals. As Kavout and others point out, the sales come alongside a record cash pile at Berkshire and a modest reshuffle of the portfolio as Greg Abel assumes day-to-day leadership.
That cash gives Berkshire flexibility to buy entire companies or move quickly if stock valuations change, which helps explain why managers might chip away at big winners now instead of later.
For Charlotte, it is largely a symbolic story line. The city’s banking flagship still has its towering presence on Tryon Street. What is shifting, at least for the moment, is where one of its most famous investors wants to keep its money parked. Investors will get a clearer read when Berkshire’s next public filings and management commentary hit in the coming weeks.
