Berkshire Hathaway operating earnings fell nearly 30% in Warren Buffett's final quarter as CEO

2026-02-28 14:17:23

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Warren Buffett and Greg Abel walkthrough the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2025.

David A. Grogen | CNBC

Berkshire Hathaway reported a big decline in its operating earnings for the fourth quarter, due in large part to weakness in the conglomerate’s insurance business.

Earnings from operations totaled $10.2 billion in Q4. That’s down more than 29% from $14.56 billion in the year-earlier period.

This was the final quarter under Warren Buffett as CEO, who announced he was stepping down at the annual shareholders meeting last May. Greg Abel took the reins to start 2026 and vowed in Berkshire’s annual letter accompanying Saturday’s results to continue the culture Buffett built of financial strength and capital discipline. Buffett remains chairman.

Insurance underwriting profits dropped 54% to $1.56 billion from $3.41 billion a year prior. Insurance investment income slid nearly 25% from to $3.1 billion from $4.088 billion.

For the full-year 2025, operating earnings totaled $44.49 billion. That’s down from $47.44 billion in the year prior.

Profits from insurance underwriting came in at $7.26 billion, down from $9 billion in 2024. Insurance investment income for the year eased to $12.5 billion from $13.6 billion a year prior.

Overall earnings, which include gains or losses from the conglomerate’s stock market investments, fell slightly in the fourth quarter to $19.2 billion from $19.7 billion a year prior. However, those numbers were impacted by a $4.5 billion impairment from Berkshire’s investments in Kraft Heinz and Occidental Petroleum. Investment gains came in at $13.5 billion.

Full year overall earnings, meanwhile, fell to $66.97 billion from $89 billion a year prior. To be sure, Berkshire always tells investors to pay little attention to its investments’ performance over short time frames.

“The amount of investment gains (losses) in any given quarter is usually meaningless and delivers figures for net earnings per share that can be extremely misleading to investors who have little or no knowledge of accounting rules,” the company said in its earnings release.

No buybacks, cash hoard dips slightly

Buffett again refrained from buying back Berkshire shares despite ending Q4 along the flatline. Despite the lack of buybacks, the conglomerate’s cash hoard did slip to $373.3 billion from a record of $381.6 billion in the third quarter.

Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares rose 10% in 2025, lagging the S&P 500’s 16.4 advance. Still, Buffett’s leadership has led to unparalleled wealth creation for shareholders.

Since 1965, Berkshire Hathaway has seen compounded annual gains of 19.7%. That’s nearly double the S&P 500’s compounded increases in that time. Overall gains for Berkshire exceed 6,000,000% over that period, while the S&P 500 has gained just 46,061%, including dividends, Abel noted in his first annual letter to shareholders as CEO.

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