Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA, BRKB) took a $52 million stake in Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK) in the third quarter, while reducing or eliminating positions in several other stocks, according to a regulatory filing Monday.

Berkshire appeared to have sold all shares it held of Home Depot Inc. (HD), CarMax Inc. (KMX), Iron Mountain Inc. (IRM), NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) and trash-hauler Republic Services Inc. (RSG). Many people who follow Berkshire have long said many of those holdings were likely those of Berkshire's other investment manager, Lou Simpson, who is retiring at the end of the year.

If that's the case, Monday's filing shows that Berkshire is repositioning its portfolio to prepare for life after Simpson. In October, Buffett announced that Todd Combs, until then a little-known manager of a Connecticut hedge fund, will soon take over some investing duties.

Berkshire also reduced holdings of Comcast Corp. (CMCSA), Ingersoll-Rand PLC (IR), Nalco Holding Co. (NLC), Nike Inc. (NKE) and Fiserv Inc. (FISV). The last was a position that Berkshire first disclosed just three months ago.

Berkshire increased its investment in Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). The firm also added shares of Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), already one of its largest holdings, and sold a small part of another major investment, Procter & Gamble Co. (PG). Berkshire alluded to the Wells Fargo and P&G transactions in a listing of its top holdings in the company's quarterly earnings report earlier this month.

Berkshire bought $611 million of equity securities in the quarter, and collected $1.82 billion from the sale of portions of the equity portfolio, according to the earlier filing of the company's quarterly results. That's a reversal from last quarter, when Buffett's Omaha, Neb.-based firm spent $1.64 billion on new stock and sold shares valued at $427 million.

Berkshire's quarterly disclosure of its $48.6 billion U.S. portfolio is scrutinized by professional money managers and amateur investors alike, and Buffett's stock picks have the power to move the shares of the companies he's buying and selling.

Bank of New York Mellon shares rose 1.6% to $28.17 in after-market trading.

Buffett has warned investors against assuming all moves in the Berkshire portfolio are his. Portions of the company's holdings have long been managed by Simpson, the head of investing at Berkshire-owned car insurer Geico Corp.

Berkshire also sold shares of Moody's Corp. (MCO), but the Sept. 30 holding listed in the regulatory filing isn't the latest available. Because of the size of the investment, Berkshire has been required to inform investors when it sells Moody's stock within days of the transactions, and the most recent filing was Oct. 21.

Berkshire's stakes in American Express Co. (AXP) and Coca-Cola Co. (KO) remained unchanged. Buffett's firm is the largest shareholder in each.

While Berkshire spent relatively little on new stocks in the third quarter, the company bought about $2.5 billion of fixed-maturity securities and increased its cash on hand by 23% in three months to about $34 billion.

Money managers that control more than $100 million are required to disclose their holdings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission each quarter. Many, like Berkshire, wait until the last possible moment to make these filings. Because the 45th day after Sept. 30 fell on Sunday, the deadline for third-quarter holdings was Monday.

-By Erik Holm, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2892; erik.holm@dowjones.com
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