DaVita Buys Back $69.03 Million in Shares From Berkshire in October Deal
Key Facts
DaVita paid about $69.03 million to buy back its shares from Berkshire Hathaway in a deal completed on October 27, 2026, Reuters reported via Boursorama. The transaction left Berkshire with a 45% stake in the company, according to the same coverage. These details show that what an initial headline described as a stake sale was a buyback by DaVita from its shareholder. The Associated Press had earlier reported that Berkshire reduced its investment in DaVita during the second quarter of 2026. The latest deal comes after an earlier reduction in the position, while Berkshire remains a major shareholder in the company.
An agreement between DaVita and Berkshire calls for quarterly share buybacks in the amount needed to return Berkshire's ownership to 45%, Reuters reported. The agreement links the periodic purchases to the ownership target, putting the October deal within a recurring mechanism between the two parties. In its filing for the second quarter of 2026, DaVita had described a share buyback agreement with Berkshire dated April 30, 2024. This provides contractual background for the buybacks, while the information available here does not specify why the October deal was carried out. The AP said Berkshire does not comment on its portfolio moves from one quarter to the next, so the coverage does not attribute a specific explanation for the sale to the company.
Berkshire's ownership of DaVita shares dates to the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Reuters, making the investment relationship a longstanding one. DaVita provides dialysis services, and an AP report described it as a major company in the field. In its results for the second quarter of 2026, the company reported consolidated revenue of $3.554 billion. Its third-quarter results showed consolidated revenue of $3,578,126 thousand, compared with $3,420,227 thousand in the third quarter of 2025. These figures provide operating context for the company when the buyback was completed, but do not on their own explain the deal's rationale.
In its third-quarter results, DaVita said the number of daily U.S. dialysis treatments rose 0.1% compared with the second quarter of 2026. Non-acquisition-related normalized treatment growth was 0.4% year over year in the third quarter. On share repurchases, the company said it bought back 0.6 million shares during the third quarter at an average price of $186.21 per share. After the quarter ended, it bought an additional 0.5 million shares through October 27 at an average price of $180.57 per share. These disclosures place the purchase from Berkshire in a period when DaVita also announced other buybacks, without specifying whether all of them were linked to the same agreement.
DaVita raised the low end of its 2026 adjusted operating income guidance to $2,175 million from $2,150 million, while keeping the high end at $2,250 million. The guidance adjustment raised the bottom of the announced range while leaving its upper end unchanged. The company's shares closed at $193.31 on October 29, 2026, according to EL7 data. That closing price came two days after the deal date, while the available information does not include an intraday price or trading range for the day of execution. No subsequent dated development concerning the agreement or Berkshire's ownership was reported beyond the quarterly buyback mechanism.