Berkshire Hathaway Increases Its Stake in SiriusXM to 32%

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. continued to increase its stake in SiriusXM, now owning 32% of the New York-based satellite radio company.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate bought nearly 3.6 million shares for about $87 million in separate transactions Wednesday through Friday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday.

According to CNBC, Berkshire upped its bet after billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media completed its deal in early September to merge its tracking stock with the rest of the audio entertainment company. It was part of Malone’s reshaping of his sprawling media empire that also included spinning off the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a separate publicly traded company, in which Berkshire also holds shares.

Buffett first bought Liberty Media’s trackers in 2016 and began piling into SiriusXM’s trackers in early 2024 after the deal was announced in a potential merger arbitrage play.

Warren Buffett, 94, has never publicly mentioned the bet on the deal, and it’s not clear whether he was behind it or whether it was the work of the billionaire investment banker’s lieutenants, either Ted Weschler or Todd Combs.

SiriusXM, which has been struggling with subscriber losses and unfavorable demographic shifts, is not a popular stock on Wall Street. Of the 14 analysts who covered the name, only five gave it a buy rating, according to FactSet.

JPMorgan analyst Sebastiano Betti reopened coverage of SiriusXM with a downgrade last week, citing concerns about the radio giant’s long-term growth and its ability to successfully target a broader demographic. Meanwhile, the analyst said the Liberty deal, which reduced the number of shares by 12%, could cause the company to pause share buybacks until 2027, which would likely weigh on the stock.