It’s starting to look a lot like the Bank of Warren Buffett.
Wall Street’s most famous investor has more than doubled his money in Bank of America since striking a roughly $5 billion deal to purchase shares of the then-embattled lender back in August 2012.
Buffett’s vote of confidence in CEO Brian Moynihan two years ago has translated into a roughly 120 percent return for the Oracle of Omaha so far.
Buffett’s total paper profit in BofA is a whopping $6.4 billion, according to an analysis commissioned by Linus Wilson, professor of finance at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
That’s three times the $2 billion return Buffett’s similarly sized crisis-era investment in Goldman Sachs netted him.
The lion’s share of Buffett’s BofA gains are derived from owning 700 million warrants to purchase BofA stock at $7.14 a share.
And with the Charlotte, NC, bank’s stock closing yesterday at $14.15, down 1.9 percent, that’s quite a profit.
Warren’s warrants can be exercised in 2021.
BofA’s shares are up 102 percent since Moynihan scored the Buffett imprimatur in 2011 to help him quell investor uncertainty then buffeting the giant bank.
Buffett also holds BofA preferred shares as a part of his original agreement, which carry a 6 percent interest rate and have so far racked up nearly $600 million in dividends over the past two years.
Wilson values Buffett’s preferred shares at more than $4.6 billion.
It’s no wonder Buffett broke bread with Moynihan on Aug. 6 — two weeks from the two-year anniversary of Buffett’s original investment.
It’s unclear if they discussed a possible exit plan.
But a Buffett exit might be unlikely, given regulatory scrutiny over the bank’s capital reserves and the premiums BofA would have to fork over to Buffett as a part of the original investment agreement.
According to CNBC, which first reported the get-together between Buffett and Moynihan, the two supped at the Happy Hollow Club in Omaha, where Buffett, worth $58.5 billion, is a member.
The two have met multiple times over the past few years in and outside Omaha, sources told The Post.
A BofA spokesman declined to comment, and a call to Buffett was not immediately returned.
The meal lasted roughly two hours, and the two shared their outlooks on the US economy, among other topics, people familiar with the meeting said.
There are a number of ways Buffett could offload his warrants, including a public auction similar to one the Treasury Department conducted to sell its stakes in bailed-out financial companies in the wake of the housing collapse, industry sources speculated.
Wilson also points out that BofA might not be pressed to repurchase the preferred shares Buffett owns, since they carry a lower rate than some of its other debt.