Berkshire Hathaway’s new CEO Greg Abel spent a significant chunk of the company’s massive pile of cash as it invested $10 billion in Google’s parent company and repurchased about $4.5 billion of its shares.
The conglomerate that legendary investor Warren Buffett built reported its second-quarter earnings Saturday morning and disclosed that its cash holdings had shrunk to $365.5 billion from nearly $400 billion at the end of March.
Berkshire’s report suggested that it had added more than $24 billion worth of commercial, industrial and other stocks to its portfolio, but the earnings report doesn’t name the stocks it bought. That won’t be revealed until a separate filing later this month.
Abel took over as CEO in January when Buffett retired after six decades leading the company. But Buffett remains chairman.
Abel announced in March that Berkshire had resumed buying back its own shares for the first time in more than two years, but investors were underwhelmed when the company only repurchased about $234 million worth of Berkshire stock in the first quarter.
The purchases in the second quarter that were disclosed Saturday demonstrate that Berkshire is serious about buybacks, but it is on the low end of the range that investors were expecting. Buffett watchers had been predicting repurchases somewhere between $5 billion and $11 billion based on a filing Buffett made when he announced his annual charitably donations in July.
The company’s standard is that it only repurchases shares when Abel and Buffett believes they are selling for less than they are worth. They do not plan to spend a specific amount like many companies do. Most of Berkshire’s repurchases were made in June. They may not be buying much now as the stock just hit a new 52-week high on Thursday.
Berkshire previously repurchased $78 billion worth of its own stock between 2018 and 2024.
In addition to the Google stock Berkshire bought this spring, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company also completed a $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison but that didn’t close until July so it’s not reflected in these quarterly figures.
Berkshire’s bottom line profit more than doubled to $25.667 billion, or $17,868.44 per Class A share, on a big paper gain in the value of its investments as the company lapped last year’s $3.8 billion writedown in the value of its Kraft Foods stake. A year ago Berkshire reported earning $12.37 billion, or $8,600.89 per Class A share,
But Buffett has long urged investors to pay more attention to Berkshire’s operating earnings to get a better sense of how its dozens of companies are performing because those numbers exclude investments. By that measure, Berkshire’s operating profit grew to $12.983 billion, or $9,038.30 per A share, from $11.16 billion, or $7,759.58 per Class A share.
Berkshire owns several major insurers, including Geico, a collection of big utilities, BNSF railroad and a varied assortment of manufacturing and retail companies, including Precision Castparts and See’s Candy.
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