Shares in SiriusXM SIRI jumped on Monday after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway announced it had raised its stake in the satellite radio company to 32 percent.
In an Oct. 10 SEC filing, Buffett’s investment vehicle said it picked up around 3.6 million shares for $87 million in transactions completed Wednesday through Friday last week in the company that operates the SiriusXM and Pandora brands.
Berkshire Hathaway continuing to build its SiriusXM stake follows Sirius XM Holdings completing a combination with the Liberty Sirius XM tracking stock group of John Malone’s Liberty Media to create the publicly traded company under the Sirius XM SIRI banner on the NASDAQ Exchange.
On Monday, shares of the new SiriusXM SIRI stock rose $2.04, or just over 8 percent, to $26.97 after Buffett’s conglomerate increased his stake in the satellite radio company looking to gain a footing in the streaming arena.
The minority shareholders of SiriusXM together hold around a 16 percent of the new SiriusXM SIRI stock, while Liberty, led by president and CEO Greg Maffei and chairman Malone, hold a controlling stake.
Berkshire Hathaway with its boosted play for SiriusXM SIRI will be looking for more success than with Paramount Global, where Buffett earlier this year exited its position in the Hollywood studio‘s non-voting stock and took a big loss on the investment.
As with Paramount, stock in SiriusXM SIRI, aside from rising on Monday, has been on a downswing, well off a 52-week high of $57.80.