NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - Warren Buffett remains comfortable with the $5 billion investment that his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) (BRKb.N) made in Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) in 2008, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a television interview with Berkshire director Thomas Murphy. "He's not concerned with the investment at all," Murphy said, citing a phone conversation with Buffett after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Goldman for civil fraud on April 16. [ID:nLDE63L25P] "He has to see what's going to happen on it, but I think he has great confidence in Goldman." Berkshire did not immediately return a call early Friday morning seeking comment. Buffett agreed in late September 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, to buy $5 billion of Goldman preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend, and warrants to buy an equal amount of common stock. That investment was seen as a vote of confidence in Goldman, and something of a surprise given Buffett's years of criticism of perceived Wall Street excesses. Buffett's best-known previous investment in Wall Street was the $700 million he put in Salomon Brothers in 1987. Four years later, he became that firm's interim chairman to restore order after it was rocked by a bond trading scandal. On May 1, Berkshire will hold its annual shareholder meeting in its Omaha, Nebraska hometown where Buffett may be questioned about Berkshire's investment in Goldman. Last year, Buffett defended Berkshire's investment in Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), which had received $25 billion of federal bailout money. Wells Fargo has since repaid that sum, and remains one of Berkshire's largest investments. Goldman received and repaid $10 billion of bailout money. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by David Cowell)
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