Tech-averse Warren Buffett would rather own shares of Coca-Cola than Apple

15 years ago

“Warren Buffett said he’ll probably prolong his aversion to electronics makers such as Apple Inc. because their business prospects are harder to predict than companies such as Coca-Cola Co.,” Jun Yang-Mar reports for Bloomberg.

“‘We held very few in the past and we’re likely to hold very few in the future,” the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in Daegu, South Korea, today, referring to electronics makers,” Yang-Mar reports. “Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, is ‘very easy for me to come to a conclusion as to what it will look like economically in five or 10 years, and it’s not easy for me to come to a conclusion about Apple,’ he said. Buffett, 80, arrived in Daegu yesterday to attend a ceremony for a new factory being built by TaeguTec Ltd., a South Korean company partly owned by his Iscar Metalworking Cos. unit that makes cutting tools. He canceled his scheduled trip to Japan this week after the earthquake.”

“Apple, the Cupertino, California-based maker of the iPhone and iPad, last year overtook Microsoft Corp. as the largest technology company by market value. The 8.6 percent stake in Coca-Cola is Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway’s biggest equity holding, followed by Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and American Express Co. (AXP), according to regulatory data compiled by Bloomberg,” Yang-Mar reports.