Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) Q4 2025 earnings
Warren Buffett and Greg Abel cover the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting on May 3, 2025 in Omaha, Nebraska.
David A. Grogen | CNBC
Berkshire Hathaway reported a big drop in operating earnings in the fourth quarter, largely due to weakness in the conglomerate’s insurance business.
Earnings from operations reached $10.2 billion in the 4th quarter. This figure was down more than 29% from $14.56 billion in the same period the previous year.
This was the last quarter for CEO Warren Buffett, who announced his resignation at the annual shareholder meeting last May. Greg Abel has taken the reins to start 2026, vowing in his annual letter accompanying Berkshire’s results on Saturday to continue the culture Buffett has created with financial strength and capital discipline. Buffett remains chairman.
Insurance underwriting profits fell 54% to $1.56 billion from $3.41 billion a year earlier. Insurance investment income fell nearly 25% from $4.088 billion to $3.1 billion.
Operating earnings for the full year 2025 amounted to $44.49 billion. This is down from $47.44 billion in the previous year.
Profits from insurance underwriting fell to $7.26 billion from $9 billion in 2024. This year’s insurance investment income decreased to $12.5 billion from $13.6 billion the previous year.
Overall earnings, which include gains and losses from the group’s stock market investments, fell slightly to $19.2 billion in the fourth quarter, from $19.7 billion a year earlier. But those figures were hit by a $4.5 billion write-down from Berkshire’s investments in Kraft Heinz and Occidental Petroleum. Investment gain was $13.5 billion.
Meanwhile, full-year overall earnings fell to $66.97 billion from $89 billion the previous year. Of course, Berkshire always tells investors to pay little attention to the performance of their investments over short periods of time.
“The amount of investment gains (losses) in a given quarter is often meaningless, providing net earnings per share figures that can be highly misleading to investors with little or no knowledge of accounting rules,” the company said in its earnings release.
No buyback, cash stock slightly reduced
Buffett once again refrained from buying back Berkshire shares, despite finishing the fourth quarter flat. Even though there was no buyback, the holding’s cash stock fell from a record $381.6 billion to $373.3 billion in the third quarter.
Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares are up 10% in 2025, lagging the S&P 500’s advance of 16.4. Yet Buffett’s leadership has led to the creation of unparalleled wealth for shareholders.
Since 1965, Berkshire Hathaway has generated compound annual returns of 19.7%. That’s nearly double the S&P 500’s compound gains over that period. In his first annual letter to shareholders as CEO, Abel noted that Berkshire’s overall earnings exceeded 6,000,000% during the period, while the S&P 500 gained only 46,061%, including dividends.
