By Ang Bee Lin
Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett sold about HK$1.1 billion ($140 million) of PetroChina Co. shares, his second sale in two months amid calls for U.S. investors to reduce holdings in China's biggest oil producer because of its links to Sudan.
The U.S. billionaire's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold 92.66 million shares at an average of HK$11.473 on Aug. 29, reducing his stake to 9.72 percent of the stock not controlled by the Chinese government from 10.16 percent, a Hong Kong stock exchange filing showed today.
Berkshire made a more than sixfold gain on the sale, having bought its PetroChina stake for less than HK$1.70 a share in April 2003. The Save Darfur Coalition on Sept. 5 called on Fidelity Investments, Vanguard Group and American Funds, to sell their stakes in PetroChina, whose parent does business with Sudan, accused by the U.S. of supporting genocide.
Buffett isn't the only U.S. investor reducing his holdings in state-run China companies. Alcoa Inc., the world's second- largest aluminum company, is selling its stake in Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd., known as Chalco, for as much as $2.1 billion, after the Hong Kong-traded stock rose almost 15-fold in the past six years.
State-Controlled
Beijing-based PetroChina is controlled by government-owned China National Petroleum Corp., which since 1996 has been developing oil fields in Sudan, where 200,000 people have died and 2 million made homeless in the civil war in the western Darfur region.
The latest sale is almost six times larger than one in July when Omaha-Nebraska based Berkshire sold 16.8 million PetroChina shares at an average price of HK$12.441. PetroChina shares closed at a record of HK$12.44 on July 9 and reached their highest intraday level of HK$12.60 on July 13.
Berkshire shareholders voted 53-1 in May against an investor proposal calling on the firm to divest its PetroChina stake because of links to Sudan. Berkshire bought the holding in 2003 for $488 million. It was worth $3.3 billion by the end of last year, according to the firm's annual report.
PetroChina's shareholders approved a plan on Aug. 10 to sell as many as 4 billion so-called yuan-denominated A shares in Shanghai. PetroChina, the world's second-largest oil company by market value, has about 12 percent of its stock publicly traded in Hong Kong and New York. The 88 percent stake owned by parent China National will be valued at the price of the Shanghai-traded stock after the listing.
The stock may surge on its mainland China debut, analysts predict, enabling PetroChina to overtake Exxon Mobil Corp.'s market value.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ang Bee Lin in Hong Kong at Bang5@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 12, 2007 08:04 EDT