Berkshire Serves Divorce Papers to Kraft Heinz After a 13-Year Pantry Marriage… Shares Get DUMPED

You can’t do this to me… do you know how much I’ve sacrificed? -Kraft Heinz watching Berkshire Hathaway slide the divorce papers across the table

For decades, Warren Buffett has been Wall Street’s patron saint of patience. Buy great companies, hold them forever, cash the dividends, repeat. That playbook has turned Berkshire into a $900B+ monster and Buffett into the Oracle of Omaha (probably the only nameworthy thing to come out of Nebraska).

Which is why this latest filing feels… personal.

Berkshire just registered its entire 27.5% stake in Kraft Heinz for potential sale… a bureaucratic way of saying, “We’re not angry, we’re just disappointed… and also open to leaving.” The market got the message loud and clear. Kraft Heinz shares fell about 6%, as investors realized the Buffett-era safety blanket may finally be getting folded up and put away.

This move comes with Greg Abel stepping fully into the CEO role, and whether intentional or not, it reads like a soft launch of the post-Buffett era. According to reports, Abel isn’t waving goodbye to the position overnight (this isn’t a YOLO dump) but he’s clearly signaling that one of Berkshire’s rare mistakes doesn’t get a lifetime hall pass.

(Source: CNBC)

And yes, by Buffett standards, Kraft Heinz was a whiff. Since the 2015 mega-merger that stitched together ketchup, mac-and-cheese, and dreams of eternal pantry dominance, the stock is down roughly 70%. 

I think we can all agree, that’s far more than a tariff caused or (insert other excuse) drawdown… that’s a ten-year slow-motion collapse. Rising input costs, shifting consumer tastes, and America slowly breaking up with ultra-processed nostalgia food have all taken turns kicking the balance sheet.

Sure, dividends helped soften the blow. But last year Berkshire still had to swallow a $3.8B writedown, which for Buffett, was an all out embarrassment.

The ole Oracle even admitted it himself. “It certainly didn’t turn out to be a brilliant idea,” he admitted, adding that breaking the company apart probably won’t fix much either. (Translation: We tried. It’s still kind of a mess.)

So now Kraft Heinz is flirting with a breakup (sauces and spreads here, Lunchables and Oscar Mayer there) hoping Wall Street likes two smaller problems more than one big one.

Analysts aren’t exactly pounding the table either. Stifel reiterated a hold rating and a $26 price target, pointing to slower U.S. consumption and emerging markets that refuse to wake up. Sure, cash flow’s fine, but growth remains… theoretical.

(Source: Marketwatch)

And for context, this isn’t even Berkshire’s first partner to leave the party. 3G Capital, the Brazilian PE firm that engineered the original deal, dipped out in 2023 after years of trimming its stake. When the cost-cutting guys give up, you know the spreadsheet gymnastics have run out of room.

And now this latest move by Berkshire appears to be the final nail in Kraft-Heinz’s coffin.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.