English|Chinese EV Giant BYD Shares Plummet Over 10% on Buffett Exit Speculation

BEIJING, July 12  (TMTPOST)— Hong Kong-listed shares of BYD Co. closed nearly 12% lower Tuesday, the biggest daily plummet in nearly two year, as data in the clearing system fueled the speculation of a legendary investor’s exit.
English|Chinese EV Giant BYD Shares Plummet Over 10% on Buffett Exit Speculation
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Source: Visual China
As of Monday, 99.93% of BYD stakes entered in the Central Clearing And Settlement System (CCASS), significant increasing from the proportion of 79.44% on July 8, according to exchange data.  The 20.94% stake, with Citigroup as custodian, was exactly the same with the BYD position that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway last reported in last December. Berkshire spent HK$1.8 billion (US$230 million) in September, 2008 to acquire 225 million BYD shares, representing 20.49% of the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker’s total Hong Kong shares. The development made market speculate that Berkshire would liquidate BYD shares it held for more than a decade since shares have to enter CCASS before sales transaction settled.
Neither Berkshire nor Citigroup commented on the speculation. BYD later Tuesday responded major shareholders should disclose all of their share sales in accordance with rules of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (HKEX), and there were not any sales disclosed to the exchange yet. The disclosures about holdings’ changes to HKEX shall prevail, BYD said. The company added its operation worked normally and all the businesses were carried out orderly. It also noted its sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) including battery electric vehicles (BEVs) recently set record high.
【English|Chinese EV Giant BYD Shares Plummet Over 10% on Buffett Exit Speculation】The speculation of exit seems a misunderstanding because HKEX changed its rule for a transition from physical shares to electronic shares, which requires the broker owning their CCASS accounts, such as Citigroup, to serve as a channel, Shanghai Securities News, the national financial newspaper owned by Xinhua News Agency, cited insiders of the securities sector. Berkshire now doesn’t have any plan to cut or increase positions based their communication with these sources. And even if the company does want to reduce the BYD holdings, it has to disclose in the statement. However, some of people in the industry pointed out there were possibility that no disclosure of sales was just due to unfinished reduction procedure, and Buffett also could borrow shares to hedge funds for short selling, reported Securities Times, another leading financial newspaper in China.

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