(Yicai Global) June 27 -- BYD’s stock fell after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway further pared its stake in the fast-growing Chinese electric vehicle giant, bringing the US investment firm’s holding to less than half of what is was a year ago.

BYD [HKG: 1211] closed almost 1 percent lower at HKD252.20 (USD32.20) a share in Hong Kong today, while its stock in Shenzhen [SHE: 002594] fell 1.1 percent to CNY260.05 (USD35.07).

Berkshire sold about 2.5 million of BYD’s Hong Kong-listed shares for an average HKD266.85 (USD34.10) apiece on June 19, cutting its holdings to 8.98 percent from 9.21 percent, according to bourse data released after the close of trading yesterday.

Berkshire now owns 3.4 percent of Shenzhen-based BYD, down from 7.7 percent before the firm began paring its stake in the automaker last August. Berkshire has sold BYD shares at least 12 times since then, even though some smaller transactions may have gone under the radar based on bourse rules.

BYD’s shares have slipped in value since last August.

Buffett, dubbed the Oracle of Omaha for his investment savvy, made a decent bet on BYD. It sold more electric cars than Tesla last year, making BYD the world's biggest producer of new energy vehicles. BYD's Hong Kong shares have surged by over 3,000 percent since Buffett bought about 225 million for HKD8 (USD1) apiece in September 2008.

BYD had a more than five-fold increase in net profit to CNY4.1 billion (USD566.6 million) in the three months ended March 31 from a year ago, while revenue jumped 80 percent to CNY120.2 billion (USD16.6 billion), according to its latest earnings results.

Amid intensifying competition in China’s auto market, the world’s largest, Great Wall Motor reported BYD to authorities on May 25, claiming that two BYD models fail to comply with the country’s emission standards, prompting a more than 5 percent drop in BYD's Hong Kong shares that day.

Editor: Emmi Laine