Gates Foundation buys $352M Home Depot stake, trims $818M from Berkshire
What's the deal? The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation TrustDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → built a new $352.7 million position in Home DepotDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, buying 1 million shares during Q2 2026. To fund the move, it cut its Berkshire HathawayDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → holdings by roughly $818 million.
Why now? The purchase followed Home DepotDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s fiscal 2026 Q2 earnings on August 18, 2026. The home improvement retailer posted $47.9 billion in net sales, up 5.7% year over year, with comparable store sales rising 1.7% — its strongest showing since 2022.
By the numbers: Adjusted earnings per share hit $4.92, beating Wall Street's $4.73 consensus. The stake is a meaningful bet for a trust that oversees $34.42 billion in 13F securities.
Home DepotDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → shares traded at $334.49 on August 20, 2026, down 1.41% year to date and 14.53% over the trailing 12 months.
What could go wrong? Growth isn't coming from a housing recovery. On the earnings call, chief financial officer Richard McPhail described "frozen housing market conditions," with sales driven instead by non-discretionary repairs. Management held its fiscal 2026 outlook, projecting sales growth of 2.5% to 4.5%.
Wall Street's view: Bank of AmericaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → analyst Christopher Nardone kept a Buy rating but trimmed his target to $407 from $412 — still about 22% above current levels. Argus holds a Buy with a $400 target, while UBSDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → cut its target to $420 from $430. Sanford C. BernsteinDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → stayed at Market Perform with a $354 target.
The signal: The trust also opened a roughly $180 million position in FedEx FreightDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → during Q2 2026, pointing to a tilt toward domestic infrastructure and tangible-asset businesses over its long-held Berkshire stake.
Read more: Blockonomi
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