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(Reuters) – Warren Buffett said his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. could buy back up to $ 100 billion of its shares, the Financial Times reported on Thursday without giving a deadline, citing a recent billionaire interview.
Berkshire did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Buffett had stated in his February annual letter to shareholders that Berkshire would likely be, in the long term, a "significant" buyer of its own shares, a transaction lower than the estimate of its intrinsic value by the Omaha-based company, in Nebraska.
Berkshire bought back $ 1.3 billion of its stock last year, after Buffett relaxed the company's buyback criteria.
The buybacks began in part because of Buffett's inability to make a major acquisition, an important reason why Berkshire closed the year 2018 with $ 111.9 billion in cash and cash equivalents.
In the interview, Buffett "dismissed" the idea of paying a dividend to shareholders.
He also lamented the prospect of a time when Berkshire shares are trading at a fair price and where other companies and stocks also look expensive. "It's my nightmare," he says.
The market value of Berkshire is more than $ 520 billion, based on reported outstanding shares.
Buffett, 88, has been running Berkshire since 1965 and has publicly stated his intention to stop.
"I'm having more fun here than any 88-year-old in the world," he said in an interview with Berkshire Headquarters.
(Report by Jonathan Stempel in New York, edited by Tom Brown)
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