Some of Berkshire's Newest Bets Aren't American. Greg Abel Bought 3 Japanese Trading Houses Last Quarter.

Since Greg Abel took over as Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB) CEO at the start of the year, investors have been watching to see what he does with the conglomerate's war chest. Filings with Japanese regulators gave an early answer last quarter.

Berkshire disclosed that its stake in trading house Mitsubishi (OTC: MSBHF) climbed to 11.1% as of April 30. Its stake in Sumitomo (OTC: SSUMY) reached 10.3% as of May 12, up from 9.3%. And Marubeni (OTC: MARUY) is on the list, too.

Berkshire's buying has pushed its holdings in both Sumitomo and Marubeni above 10%, cementing the conglomerate's position as the largest shareholder of both companies.

These are three of the five Japanese trading houses (Itochu and Mitsui are the other two) that Berkshire began buying in 2019 under Warren Buffett, who remains chairman. The original thesis has already paid off handsomely. So why does Berkshire keep adding? To me, the numbers make the case better than any story could.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

1. Mitsubishi

Mitsubishi is Berkshire's largest Japanese position. The trading houses (Japan calls them sogo shosha) are conglomerates in their own right, each owning interests in a vast array of businesses in Japan and around the world.

At the end of 2025, Berkshire owned 10.8% of Mitsubishi, a stake that cost $4.2 billion and was worth $9.2 billion, according to Berkshire's annual report. The position also paid Berkshire $273 million in dividends last year, the largest payout of the five. And the April filing shows the conglomerate kept buying anyway.

2. Marubeni

Marubeni has been Berkshire's best performer of the group. The stake cost about $1.6 billion and had grown to about $4.5 billion by the end of 2025 -- nearly a tripling. It added another $105 million in dividends last year.

Berkshire owned 9.8% of Marubeni at year-end. The latest buying lifted that above 10%.

Abel's newest dollars, in other words, went to Berkshire's biggest winner.

3. Sumitomo

Sumitomo rounds out the trio. Berkshire's position cost $1.9 billion and stood at $4.0 billion at the close of 2025, and it paid $102 million in dividends last year. The May filing put Berkshire's ownership at 10.3%, up a full percentage point.

Impressive gains

Add it all up, and Berkshire's five trading house stakes cost $15.4 billion and were worth $35.4 billion at the end of 2025. The five companies paid Berkshire a combined $862 million in dividends last year. That works out to a yield of about 5.6% on Berkshire's original cost.

The trend is worth noting, too. A year earlier, the same five positions had cost $13.8 billion and were worth $23.5 billion. So in 2025, Berkshire put about $1.6 billion of new money in, and the market value of its stakes grew by nearly $12 billion. The gap between what Berkshire paid and what it owns keeps widening.

The funding makes the math even better. Berkshire has borrowed in Japan an amount roughly equivalent to the yen it has invested, at an average interest cost of just 1.2%. Put another way, the dividends cover the borrowing costs several times over before counting a penny of share-price appreciation.

And the strategy is still very much in use. Berkshire issued another 272.3 billion yen of senior notes in April.

There's also room to keep going. Berkshire originally agreed to keep its ownership of each company below 10%, but Buffett wrote in his February 2025 shareholder letter that as Berkshire approached the limit, the five companies agreed to relax the ceiling moderately.

"I expect that Greg and his eventual successors will be holding this Japanese position for many decades," Buffett wrote in the same letter.

And in his first annual letter as CEO, Abel put the positions on equal footing with the company's flagship stock holdings. He wrote that Berkshire views its Japanese investments as "comparable to our major U.S. holdings in importance and long-term value creation opportunity."

For Berkshire shareholders, I think the buying is an encouraging early signal. Abel's first notable moves weren't a splashy acquisition or a chase after the market's artificial intelligence (AI) trade. They were more of what already works: profitable conglomerates bought at low prices, paying growing dividends, funded with cheap fixed-rate debt.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have positions in Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.