What has been Buffett's most valuable Chinese stock?

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Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, dubbed as the "god of stocks" in China, is known for holding a small number of very profitable ideas in his portfolio.

So what has been the king of buy-and-hold investment's most valuable Chinese investment over the past decade?

It turns out to be BYD, which is now China's largest battery and electric car maker by sales.

On Sept. 26, 2008, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought 24.59 percent of BYD's Hong Kong traded stock.

Since then, the share price of the company has rocketed by over 500 percent, greatly outperforming Berkshire shares in the same 10-year period, which have climbed only 144 percent.

It means that at current prices, 232 million US dollars' worth of investment has expanded to a stake of about 1.6 billion US dollars, and his company has raked in 1.3 billion US dollars from the investment so far.

The logo of BYD is seen on a car presented at the Auto China 2016 auto show in Beijing, China, April 29, 2016./Reuters Photo

2008 was the year when the world financial crisis started and the auto industry's shift toward electric cars was not yet clear to most people.

It was even two years ahead of the listing of Tesla, now a world leader in the industry.

In the past ten years, BYD has grown from a maker of cell-phone batteries into a manufacturer of electric cars and monorails.

The company has also seen a sharp growth in global orders. The firm has signed a slew of monorail deals with countries including the Philippines, Egypt, Cambodia, and Morocco.

The gain it made in the past decade is the fourth-largest among the 27 companies in the Bloomberg World Auto Manufacturers Index, behind China's Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd., Tesla and Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.

“BYD has recorded rapid growth over the past decade,” the Shenzhen-based company said in a statement. “Mr. Warren Buffett's unparalleled personal charm and practical action have provided strong support for BYD's development.”

However, analysts warned investors looking to follow Buffett's path to think twice over the next year.

Analysts Patrick Yuan of Jefferies Hong Kong Ltd., and Zhixuan Lin of Hua Tai Securities Co., both affirmed the equivalent of sell recommendations on the stock this week.

Part of the reason is that China's electric-vehicle market is getting increasingly crowded, and BYD's profits have also been undermined as China cut state subsidies to electric vehicle makers last year.

BYD's price-to-earnings ratio of about 35 also far exceeds that of other major Chinese auto manufacturers including Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.