Aug 8 (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK/A ) began reducing

its enormous stockpile of cash in the second quarter, investing

billions of dollars in stocks including Alphabet and

repurchasing billions more of its own, as it reported higher

earnings at its dozens of businesses.

The conglomerate said on Saturday it repurchased $4.5

billion of its own stock in the second quarter and over $3.3

billion more in July, accelerating repurchases it had begun in

March following a nearly two-year hiatus.

It also bought nearly $20 billion more stocks than it sold

between April and June, ending 14 straight quarters as a net

seller of stocks.

Purchases included a $10 billion addition to Berkshire's

already-large investment in Google and YouTube parent Alphabet

, which is now one of its largest stock holdings.

Berkshire ended June with $364.7 billion of cash, down from

a record $380.2 billion three months earlier.

Second-quarter operating profit rose 16% to $12.98 billion,

or about $9,068 per Class A share, from $11.16 billion a year

earlier.

The results benefited from higher earnings at the BNSF

railroad and from manufacturing, service and retail operations,

and from foreign currency fluctuations.

Net income more than doubled to $25.67 billion, or about

$17,928 per Class A share, from $12.37 billion. Year-earlier

results included a $3.76 billion writedown for Berkshire's stake

in the packaged food company Kraft Heinz ( KHC ).

The quarter was the second since Greg Abel became

Berkshire's chief executive, succeeding Warren Buffett, who

remains chairman.

Investors and analysts have been eager to see how Abel's

approach to managing Berkshire's capital differs from that of

Buffett, who had difficulty deploying cash toward the end of his

60 years at the helm of his Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate.

The pace of stock repurchases is comparable to Buffett's

peak pace early this decade.

Berkshire's biggest year for buybacks was 2021, when it

repurchased $27 billion of stock.