the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate In the second quarter, investor-oriented Warren Buffett and his affiliate Berkshire Hathaway earned significantly less. Compared to the previous year, the surplus fell by 15 percent to 4.3 billion dollars (3.6 billion euros), as the company announced on Friday after the US stock exchange closing. Operating profit rose 11 percent to $ 4.1 billion. Already in the previous quarter the profit had shrunk considerably.
Difficulties arose in the insurance business, an important support in Buffett’s empire. In addition, the invest- ment party delivered significantly poorer results. Analysts had expected more profit, the stock traded after-exchange losses. In the course of the year, however, the price has increased by eleven per cent.
The most expensive shares in the world the shares of Berkshire Hathaway have long been by far the most expensive shares in the world. For the much-coveted “Class A” paper, of which Buffett itself holds barely 37 per cent, investors currently have to spend 270,000 dollars. They have been trading in the five-digit range since the mid-1990s.
However, there are also more favorable “Class B” shares, which also have significantly lower voting rights. They cost about 180 dollars, which also corresponds to an all-time high. Berkshire Hathaway also plays a major role in the royal class with more than $ 440 billion. A higher market capitalization currently have only the tech giants Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.
Berkshire Hathaway is home to more than 80 companies, from insurers, retail outlets and car dealers to newspapers and a freight railway. Buffett’s conglomerate also holds large shares in various listed companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs and Kraft Heinz. The 86-year-old Starinvestor, who is called “the Oracle of Omaha” for his lucrative business, has been leading the company for over 50 years.
In all, Buffett and his deputy investment managers, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, spent about $3.04 billion on equities in the quarter while selling $4.36 billion in stock. For fixed-income securities, there were $23.2 billion of purchases, compared with a combined $20.3 billion of sales, redemptions and maturities. Berkshire’s stock portfolio was valued at more than $137 billion at the end of June. The filing showed a further reduction of Berkshire’s stake in International Business Machines Corp.
Book value, a measure of assets minus liabilities that’s closely tracked by investors, rose 2.7 percent in the quarter to $182,816 per share. The company’s Class A shares have climbed 11 percent this year to a record $270,000 as of 4 p.m. in New York, matching the gain in the S&P 500 Index.
