Shares of UnitedHealth Group are surging before the market open Friday as Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed that it recently purchased shares of the beleaguered insurer.
Berkshire Hathaway bought around 5 million shares of UnitedHealth last quarter, according to a regulatory filing. The stake was valued at about $1.57 billion.
Buffett plans to retire as CEO at the end of the year after six decades of building Berkshire Hathaway. Many investors comb through Berkshire’s filings every quarter because they like to follow Buffett’s moves.
The filing doesn’t make clear who at Berkshire handled the investment. Besides Buffett, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs also pick stocks, but they generally handle smaller portfolios and Combs also serves as Geico’s CEO.
Besides stocks, Berkshire owns dozens of companies in a variety of industries including Geico insurance, BNSF railroad, several major utilities and an assortment of manufacturing and retail companies. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company’s holdings include many well-known brands like See’s Candy and Dairy Queen.
UnitedHealth has been dealing with a series of difficulties. Last month the company said that it was cooperating with federal criminal and civil investigations involving its market-leading Medicare business.
The health care giant said at the time that it had contacted the Department of Justice after reviewing media reports about investigations into certain elements of its business.
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal said federal officials had launched a civil fraud investigation into how the company re