Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway trimmed its bet on Activision Blizzard in late 2022, as the video game maker’s agreed takeover by Microsoft struggled in the face of regulatory scrutiny.

Berkshire sold 7.4mn shares, or 12 per cent of its position, in Activision in the fourth quarter. The sales by the sprawling industrials-to-insurance conglomerate reduced its stake by roughly $435mn to $4bn, filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Tuesday.

Buffett last year bet big on Activision, buying millions of shares of the company behind the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft game franchises. The purchase was unlike most of the investments in Berkshire’s $306bn stock portfolio, with the billionaire investor hoping to profit off the steep discount at which the stock was trading compared with the $95 share price Microsoft offered to pay for Activision in January 2022.