(Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. furtherreduced its stake in Munich Re as the billionaire investor re-evaluates theattractiveness of the reinsurance market.
|The holding was trimmed to 4.6% from 9.7%, Munich Re said in afiling Friday. Buffett’s firm once owned about 12% of theMunich-based reinsurer and has been lowering the stake thisyear.
|Berkshire, which also sells reinsurance, invested from 2008 to2010 in rivals Munich Re and Swiss Re. Since then, Buffett hassoured some on the industry. The companies, which provide backupcoverage to primary carriers, have been pressured by competitionfrom Wall Street investors seeking weather-related bets that areuncorrelated to financial markets.
|Related: Reinsurance revolution: Shaping the market of thefuture
|“The reinsurance business is not as good as it was,” Buffettsaid in May during Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.“It’s a business whose prospects have turned for the worse andthere’s not much we can do about it.”
|Munich Re’s shares climbed 10% this year through Friday,bringing its market value to 30.5 billion euros ($33.5billion).
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