Berkshire Hathaway
Numbers
What the show said, with receipts
Every figure the hosts put on the record for Berkshire Hathaway, with its source and the date it was captured. The audited statements from the company's own filings are under Financials.
Freshness
0
Current (≤6 mo)
0
Recent (≤18 mo)
5
Older
Freshness is measured from each figure’s capture date, not from the episode date. An older figure is not wrong; it is a figure that has had time to move.
Reported figures
Book value per share (2024)
3 yr~$460K
Class A share; book value compounded at ~19.8%/year from 1965-2023 vs ~10.2% for the S&P 500
[Berkshire 2023 Annual Report + Acquired Berkshire Part III] · as of 2024
- David:From 1965 to 2022, Berkshire compounded at 19.8 percent per year. The S&P 500 with dividends compounded at 9.9 percent. That is not an accident over 57 years. That is a system.[Acquired Berkshire Part III, ch. The compounding record]
National Indemnity acquisition (1967)
60 yr$8.6M
the first insurance acquisition; bought from Jack Ringwalt; created the float model that funded everything after
[Acquired Berkshire Part I] · as of 1967
- Ben:Jack Ringwalt owns National Indemnity, a small insurance company in Omaha. And for a brief window every year he wanted to sell it, and then the window would close. Warren happened to get him in that window. Eight point six million dollars.[Acquired Berkshire Part I, ch. National Indemnity]
Insurance float (2023)
3 yr~$168B
premiums collected before claims paid; Berkshire earns investment returns on this pool at essentially zero cost of capital
[Berkshire 2023 Annual Report] · as of 2023-12
Cash + T-bills held (2024 Q3)
2 yr~$325B
record cash position; Buffett publicly stated he could not find businesses to buy at prices that made sense
[Berkshire Q3 2024 earnings] · as of 2024-09
BNSF Railway acquisition
17 yr$44B
Buffett's 'all-in bet on America' (2010); largest deal Berkshire had done; BNSF is the largest freight rail in the western US
[Acquired Berkshire Part III] · as of 2010