Warren Buffett says he sold a third of stake in IBM: CNBC | Reuters

Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKa.N) Warren Buffett has sold “a reasonable amount” of his stake in International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) after the stock crossed $180, CNBC reported.

IBM’s stock touched $180 on Feb 14 and reached a high of $182.78 during Feb. 16 trading. It closed on Thursday at $159.05 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Berkshire Hathaway and IBM could not be reached for comment outside regular business hours.

Buffett owned about 81 million shares of IBM at the end of 2016 and sold about a third in the first and second quarters of 2017, CNBC reported, citing Buffett.

“I don’t value IBM the same way that I did six years ago when I started buying … I’ve revalued it somewhat downward,” Buffett told CNBC in an interview.

“IBM is a big strong company, but they’ve got big strong competitors, too,” he said.

Berkshire Hathaway still owns more than 50 million shares of IBM and Buffett said he has stopped selling.

In April, IBM reported a bigger-than-expected decline in revenue for the first time in five quarters due to weak demand in its IT services business.

(This version of the story has been corrected to add missing letter in Buffett’s name in the first paragraph)

(Reporting by Ahmed Farhatha in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)