Buffett’s Berkshire offloads $228.7 million in BofA shares in latest sale By Reuters

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: ) sold $228.7 million worth of shares in Bank of America as the conglomerate continues to reduce its stake in the second-largest U.S. lender .

Berkshire on Tuesday night disclosed that it sold about 5.8 million shares of BofA between September 6 and 10.

That brings total share sales to about 174.7 million since mid-July, totaling $7.19 billion, according to LSEG data.

Berkshire, still BofA’s largest shareholder, must continue to report sales regularly until its stake falls below 10 percent. It is currently 11.1%.

The 94-year-old billionaire, one of the world’s most revered investors, began investing in BofA in 2011, when Berkshire bought $5 billion in preferred stock.

The stake sales come more than a year after Buffett praised BofA and CEO Brian Moynihan.

Moynihan said Tuesday that Buffett had been a “big” investor for the bank, but did not ask the legendary investor about the recent stake sales.

“I don’t know exactly what he’s doing because, frankly, we can’t ask,” Moynihan told investors at a financial conference in New York.

An analyst at Deutsche Bank said last week that Berkshire could aim to get just below the 10% reporting threshold to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

Shares of Bank of America were down 0.8 percent in premarket trading Wednesday. The lender’s shares have lagged the broader markets since Berkshire began its sales.