Berkshire Hathaway profit falls on lower insurance – Business News
Berkshire Hathaway stated on Saturday working profit fell within the fourth quarter, reflecting lower income from its insurance operations, and wrote down a longstanding investment in Occidental Petroleum.
The quarter was Warren Buffett’s final because the conglomerate’s chief govt, a job now held by Greg Abel. Buffett stays chairman.
Berkshire reported ending 2025 with $373.3 billion of money, giving Abel the firepower to make the sort of main acquisitions that eluded Buffett over the past decade.
Berkshire Hathaway stated its fourth-quarter profit fell 30% to $10.2 billion. REUTERS
The quarter was additionally the thirteenth in a row by which Berkshire offered more shares than it purchased, and the sixth straight with no share buybacks.
Quarterly working profit fell 30% to $10.2 billion, or about $7,092 per Class A share, from $14.53 billion a yr earlier.
Much of this got here from a 38% drop in quarterly insurance profit. Falling rates of interest lowered income on Berkshire’s money, whereas pricing pressures restricted the willingness of the Geico auto insurer and reinsurance companies so as to add clients.
Net income fell 3% to $19.2 billion from $19.69 billion, because the writedown and lower working profit offset the worth of Berkshire’s holdings in Apple, American Express, and different shares.
For the complete yr, working profit fell 6% to $44.49 billion, whereas web income fell 25% to $66.97 billion.
Buffett had long urged buyers to disregard fluctuations in Berkshire’s web income, which replicate accounting guidelines that require Berkshire to report beneficial properties and losses on shares that Berkshire shouldn’t be promoting.
In his first annual letter to Berkshire shareholders, Abel paid tribute to his mentor, calling Buffett a “remarkable CEO” and “arguably the greatest investor of all time” and pledging to keep up his self-discipline in investing Berkshire’s capital.
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett stepped down as chief govt on the finish of final yr. AP
“We are committed to strengthening the great legacy built by Warren Buffett and his business partner Charlie Munger, ensuring it endures through our commitment to excellence,” Abel wrote, referring to Berkshire’s late vice chairman. “I recognize how you want us to succeed together, and to do so in the right way.”
Abel additionally stated some of Berkshire’s companies needed higher working efficiency. He is extensively anticipated to have a more hands-on position than Buffett in overseeing them, although the companies are anticipated to keep up their common day-to-day autonomy.
“Top-line growth is a challenge, and Abel teed up an expectation that reinsurance and commercial insurance growth may be nonexistent in 2026,” stated Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research in New York. “Revenue growth across the board was also pretty tepid.”
Berkshire’s $4.5 billion writedown of its 26.9% stake in Occidental mirrored its perception that the oil company’s declining stock price was not “temporary,” although it stated it had no intention to sell any of its stock.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel, proper, and his spouse, Andrea Abel, in 2023. Getty Images
Buffett started investing in Occidental in 2019 by serving to finance that company’s buy of Anadarko Petroleum, and has typically praised Occidental’s management.
The writedown was Berkshire’s second in 2025, along with a $3.76 billion writedown of its investment in Kraft Heinz.
Geico stated pretax underwriting profit fell by almost half within the fourth quarter, because it spent more on promoting and accident claims elevated.
Profit on the BNSF railroad rose 6% within the fourth quarter, whereas profit from Berkshire’s vitality operations fell 5%.
Berkshire additionally stated profit from its manufacturing, retail and repair companies rose 3% within the quarter and 4% for the yr, whilst “sluggish” shopper demand contributed to full-year income declines at some shopper companies, together with Duracell, Fruit of the Loom and Squishmallows maker Jazwares.
Lower beneficial properties associated to international currency additionally weighed on working profit.
Berkshire shares have lagged the Standard & Poor’s 500 by more than 27 proportion factors since Buffett introduced May 3 he was stepping down. Berkshire shares and the index have each risen much less than 1% in 2026.
