Warren Buffett Gets Into Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V. (CBI), Adds More Wells Fargo & Co (WFC)

Davita. Berkshire has a large percentage stake in DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc (NYSE:DVA), a provider of kidney dialysis services at both hospitals and at specialized dialysis centers, and slightly increased its holdings during Q1 to a total of about 15 million shares. DaVita also had a special item pull its net income growth negative last quarter, and correcting for that, pretax income grew 39% compared to the first quarter of 2012. The market capitalization of $14 billion represents a multiple of 16 on forward earnings estimates; those targets do include an expectation of significant increases in earnings per share over the next couple years. Still, given the company’s impressive earnings growth (and revenue rising over 50% over the same time frame) we’d be interested in considering it as a growth stock. Billionaire David Shaw’s D.E. Shaw has been another major shareholder of DaVita in the past (check out D.E. Shaw’s stock picks).

Berkshire didn’t sell a significant number of shares of any of its ten largest positions, even as the holding company announced a buyout of H.J. Heinz Company (NYSE:HNZ) and made the purchases we’ve mentioned here. As such Buffett and his team appear to like stocks at this point in time, and considering the high beta at Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V.(NYSE:CBI) they seem confident in the broader economy. We think that these three names are worthy of consideration by investors, though it’s important to note that both DaVita and Chicago Bridge & Iron Company N.V.(NYSE:CBI) are dependent on continuing their strong recent performance rather than being traditional value stocks. In addition, we would advise considering other large banks as well before buying Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC).

Disclosure: I own no shares of any stocks mentioned in this article.