Warren Buffett Buys Over Four Million More Burlington Northern Shares As Price Plunges

If Warren Buffett liked Burlington Northern Santa Fe in the high $70s, he must love it in the low $60s.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reports in an SEC filing tonight that it bought almost 4.4 million shares in the freight railroad over the last three trading days at prices between $61.65 and $63.43.

Total cost of the 4,363,000 shares comes out to $272.2 million, an average of $62.15 each.

Burlington's stock price has tumbled 25 percent over the past two weeks. It closed at $81.27 on January 6 and finished at $61.25 today, Tuesday.

Berkshire's Burlington Buys - Jan. 2009

Date	Shares Acquired	Price/Share	Total Price
Thursday, January 15	1,800,000	$62.1922	$111,945,960
Friday, January 16	681,000	$63.4315	$43,196,852
Tuesday, January 20	1,882,000	$61.6529	$116,030,758
TOTAL	4,363,000	$62.15301	$271,173,569

Source: SEC Filings

The additional stock raises Berkshire's stake to 74,452,029 shares, about 21.75 percent of Burlington's shares. Berkshire continues to be Burlington's biggest shareholder, well ahead of Capital Research Global Investors, which reports just over 19 million shares.

Berkshire's stake topped 20 percent last December, after it bought 2.2 million shares in an options-related transaction. Burlington was in the mid $70s at that point.

In January of 2008, Berkshire bought almost 3 million shares in a series of purchases at prices between $75.51 and $78.18. There was another series of buys just under $80 in the summer of 2007.

Buffett has often said he doesn't get upset when the price of a stock he's bought goes down. If he's still convinced confident about the company's long-term prospects, he sees it as an opportunity to buy more shares at an even lower price.

Current stock prices:

Burlington Northern:

Berkshire Class A:

Berkshire Class B:

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