By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:) Inc has stepped up its tempo of inventory buybacks, repurchasing greater than $1.8 billion of its personal inventory this yr.

In its proxy submitting on Friday, Berkshire mentioned that as of March 8 it had the equal of 1,455,698 Class A shares excellent, down 4,035 from yr finish and a couple of,537 from Feb. 13, reflecting the repurchases.

Berkshire’s repurchases have additionally included Class B shares, which usually value about 1/1500th as a lot as Class A shares.

The Class A shares closed on Friday at $442,765, their low for the yr, whereas the Class B shares closed at $293.51, close to their low.

Berkshire’s buybacks comply with almost $60 billion between 2020 and 2022.

They counsel that Buffett and fellow billionaire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, who deal with main capital allocation choices, nonetheless view Berkshire’s inventory as undervalued, and repurchases as a prudent use of the corporate’s money.

Berkshire ended 2022 with $128.6 billion of money and equivalents.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate owns dozens of companies together with Geico automobile insurance coverage and the BNSF railroad, and shares resembling Apple Inc (NASDAQ:) and Financial institution of America Corp (NYSE:). Buffett owns 15.6% of Berkshire’s inventory.

In his Feb. 25 annual letter to shareholders, Buffett defended buybacks, calling somebody who views all repurchases as dangerous “an financial illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue.”

The remark appeared to criticize the White Home and a few Democrats who would favor that corporations use out there money to reinvest of their companies.

Buybacks are topic to a 1% excise tax, which President Joe Biden has proposed quadrupling.