Berkshire Hathaway's first big buy under new CEO Greg Abel isn't a tech name or a railroad. It's a department store that just told its own investors sales will shrink this year - Macy's.
The check is small for Berkshire, with about $55 million sitting inside a book worth hundreds of billions. The market still noticed, sending Macy's stock up roughly 6% after hours the moment the news hit.
Abel took the CEO seat in January, when Warren Buffett stepped out of the job. The 13F filed on May 15 covers Berkshire's holdings through March 31, and it's one of the first big looks at how the new boss is running the book.
The Macy's stake came in around 3 million shares. Berkshire also opened a fresh Delta Air Lines position of about 40 million shares, sending Delta stock up 3% after hours, and tripled its Alphabet holding on top of an Apple stake that stayed near $57.8 billion.
The longtime core positions - Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Moody's - were left essentially untouched. The bigger story was what came off the books.
Berkshire walked away from names like Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, UnitedHealth, Aon, and Domino's Pizza, with UnitedHealth sliding 2.4% after hours on the exit news. Some of those moves may track back to Todd Combs, a longtime Berkshire stock picker who left for JPMorgan Chase last year.
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Macy's, under CEO Tony Spring, is in the middle of a major reset. The chain is closing weaker stores and pouring money into its top locations, plus Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury, with Spring also focused on fresher merchandise and a better in-store experience.
The high-end side is doing the heavy lifting. Bloomingdale's posted same-store sales up 9.9% over the holidays, Bluemercury turned in another strong quarter, and overall Q4 chain sales came in at $7.6 billion with same-store sales up 1.8%.
The year ahead looks smaller. Macy's sees fiscal 2026 sales of $21.4 billion to $21.65 billion, down from fiscal 2025's $21.8 billion in net sales, with adjusted earnings expected to land between $1.90 and $2.10 per share.
Tariffs are the wild card. Most of Macy's clothing, home goods, and accessories come from overseas, and the chain has warned that tariff costs will hit the first half of the year hardest, with Q1 taking the biggest punch.
Kohl's flagged similar pressure in March, when its CEO said low- and middle-income shoppers are pulling back and full-year sales could be flat or down up to 2%.
Macy's kept its quarterly dividend at 19.15 cents per share, payable July 1 to holders of record on June 15.
A 13F is a snapshot, not a live feed. The Macy's stake reflects what Berkshire held on March 31, so the book today could already look different.
Greg Abel's Berkshire just made its first big retail buy, and it picked a chain that says its own sales will fall this year.
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