The investment conglomerate, run by Greg Abel with a hand from Warren Buffett, has spent $32 billion of its cash in the latest quarter - much of that on its own stock.
Berkshire Hathaway booked a near $13 billion gain on investments in the latest quarter, and CEO Greg Abel has put some of its massive cash hoard to work.
Berkshire Hathaway is making a lot of money again, and it's spending a lot as well, a good chunk of it to buy its own stock.
The investment conglomerate, run by CEO Greg Abel but still influenced by legendary investors Warren Buffett, reported a second quarter profit that more than doubled from a year ago, mostly because of the money made on its investments.
And the company has put some of its massive cash hoard to work, for the first time since Abel took the reins.
Berkshire $(BRK.B)$ $(BRK.A)$ reported Saturday second-quarter net income that jumped 107.5% to $25.67 billion. That was well above the average estimate of two analysts surveyed by FactSet of $10.62 billion.
Excluding $12.68 billion in investment gains, which were predominantly from its investments in stocks, operating earnings increased 16.3% to $12.98 billion, also above expectations of about $10.58 billion. That investment gain comes after Berkshire booked a $1.24 billion loss in the first quarter, the first with Abel as CEO. In the fourth quarter, the last with Buffett in charge, Berkshire had recorded an investment gain of $13.49 billion.
And after accumulating a record cash holding of $397.4 billion at the end of the first quarter, Abel led a spend of $31.9 billion to bring the pile down to $365.5 billion.
Some of that money was spent to buy back its stock. The company spent $349.6 million to repurchase 478 shares of Class A common stock at a weighted average price of $731,389.41 during the second quarter, with the bulk of those purchases coming in June. It also paid $4.18 billion to buy back about 8.6 million Class B shares at a weighted average price of $485.95, with most of the purchases made in June.
Not bad, because the Class A shares closed Friday at $780,085.97, or 6.7% above the price paid on repurchases. And the Class B shares closed Friday 7.4% above its repurchase priced at $521.80.
As Berkshire has stated, share repurchases can be made any time that CEO Greg Abel, "after consultation with the chairman of the board" - that's Warren Buffett - believes the price is below the company's intrinsic value.
In the first quarter, the company had only spent $234.2 million on share repurchases.
How much the company spent on equity investments, and what stocks the company bought, will be disclosed in its next 13-F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, due out around Aug. 14.
And keep in mind the company announced during the quarter, on May 31, that it was buying home builder Taylor Morris Home in a deal with an equity value of $6.8 billion. That deal was completed in the third quarter, on July 24.
Berkshire's Class B shares have rallied 9.6% over the past three months, to beat the S&P 500 index's SPX gain of 4.9% over the same time. But so far in 2026, the Class B shares have edged up 3.8% while the S&P 500 has advanced 13.3%.
-Tomi Kilgore
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