By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc
Berkshire also shed an investment dating to the mid-1970s that reflected Buffett's longstanding love for newspapers, selling its stake in Graham Holdings Co
The changes were disclosed in a regulatory filing detailing Berkshire's U.S.-listed stock holdings as of March 31.
Berkshire owned about $173 billion of equities, as well as dozens of businesses in the railroad, insurance, energy, chemical, food and retail and other sectors.
Berkshire said it owned about 40.5 million Teva American depositary receipts (ADRs) worth about $693 million as of that date, up from 18.9 million ADRs three months earlier.
Teva's share price rose 5.1 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Stocks often rise in price when Berkshire reveals new or increased stakes.
Larger stock investments are normally made by Buffett, while smaller bets come from his investment managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. The filing does not say who bought which stocks.
Berkshire said much of the $14.8 billion it invested in equities during the quarter went to Apple, and said it owned 239.6 million shares worth more than $40 billion.
That gave Berkshire a roughly 5 percent stake in the iPhone maker, surpassing BlackRock Inc and trailing only Vanguard Group, according to Reuters data.
Buffett told CNBC on May 7: "I'd love to own 100 percent" of Apple, two days after he told Berkshire's annual meeting that he might buy more Apple for the right price.
Berkshire shed a more than six-year-old investment in International Business Machines Corp
The sale of Berkshire's last 107,775 Graham shares ended an investment that once exceeded $1 billion.
Buffett pitched newspapers while growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, and was a longtime friend of the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.
She died in 2001 and the Post was sold 12 years later to Amazon.com Inc
Berkshire still invests in newspapers and recently owned 32 daily newspapers including its hometown Omaha World-Herald.
Buffett has lamented how changing reader habits have damaged the industry, and said only The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and perhaps the Post have come up with digital business models capable of replacing lost print advertising.
In Tuesday's filing, Berkshire also reported higher stakes in Bank of New York Mellon Co
Berkshire had disclosed the Phillips 66 change, and that it might sell Wells Fargo stock to keep its stake below 10 percent.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by G Crosse and Leslie Adler)
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
