Berkshire buys $4.1 bn of stock in TSMC

Berkshire Hathaway said it purchased more than $4.1 billion of stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC).
Billionaire Warren Buffett’s conglomerate, in a Monday regulatory filing, said Berkshire owned about 60.1 million American depositary shares of the world’s largest contract chipmaker.

Taiwan Semi posted an 80 percent jump in third-quarter profit, helped by demand from customers such as iPhone maker Apple, by far the largest investment in Berkshire’s $306.2 billion equity portfolio.

“I suspect Berkshire has a belief that the world cannot do without the products manufactured by Taiwan Semi,” said Tom Russo, a partner at Gardner, Russo & Quinn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which owns Berkshire shares.

“Only a small number of companies that can amass the capital to deliver semiconductors, which are increasingly central to people’s lives,” he added.