Omaha, Nebraska — Berkshire Hathaway Company . (NYSE:), led by Warren E. Buffett, increasing its stake in Verisign Company . (NASDAQ:) with a series of purchases totaling $4.1 million. The transactions, disclosed in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, took place over several days, with shares purchased at prices ranging from $204.61 to $204.94 each. The internet infrastructure company, currently valued at $19.7 billion, is trading near its 52-week high of $210.22, and appears to be slightly undervalued according to InvestingPro analysis.
Purchases included 1,621 shares on December 31, 2024, at an average price of $204.83, followed by 5,879 shares on January 2, 2025, at an average price of $204.84 per share. On January 3, 2025, Berkshire acquired an additional 11,744 shares at a price of $204.61 and 800 shares at a price of $204.94. Verisign maintains impressive gross profit margins of 87.6% and carries a moderate price-to-earnings ratio of 23.9 times.
Following these transactions, Berkshire Hathaway now owns a total of 13,289,880 Verisign shares, reflecting its continued confidence in the company. Warren Buffett, as Berkshire's controlling shareholder, can be seen as beneficially owning these shares. However, he denies beneficial ownership except to the extent of his financial interest. InvestingPro The data reveals that the company maintains a 'good' financial health score, with an additional 12 key insights available to subscribers through Pro Research's comprehensive report.
In other recent news, Berkshire Hathaway, led by Warren Buffett, increased its investments in Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:), Sirius XM Holdings (NASDAQ:), and VeriSign. Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of approximately 8.9 million shares of Occidental Petroleum for approximately $409 million, approximately five million shares of Sirius
In a separate development, VeriSign stock was upgraded from neutral to outperform by Baird, citing improved clarity on pricing and positive free cash flow outlook. Citi also reaffirmed its Buy rating on VeriSign, setting a price target of $210.00. The positive outlook for both companies comes on the heels of VeriSign's recent renewal of its cooperation agreement with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
VeriSign also announced the renewal of its .com registration agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which provides provisions to enhance the security and stability of the .com top-level domain. The agreement maintains the current pricing structure for .com domain names.
Finally, VeriSign reported modest 3.8% revenue growth in its third-quarter 2024 results, to $391 million. This was accompanied by a 13.1% increase in earnings per share, which rose to $2.07. For all of 2024, the company expects revenue to be between $1.554 billion and $1.559 billion, with operating income expected to be between $1.054 billion and $1.059 billion.
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