Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is an American diversified holding company that owns a portfolio of insurance, railroad, utility, manufacturing, and retail businesses, and holds one of the world's largest concentrations of publicly traded equity securities, generating $371 billion in revenue and $44.5 billion in after-tax operating earnings in fiscal 2025. Founded as a textile manufacturer in 1839 and reshaped by Warren Buffett after he took control in 1965, Berkshire has compounded book value per share at roughly 18% annually over six decades, transforming a failing New England mill into a conglomerate worth roughly $1 trillion.

This is a transition story as much as a business story. On January 1, 2026, Greg Abel succeeded Buffett as CEO — the first leadership change in sixty years — inheriting a fortress balance sheet with nearly $400 billion in cash and T-bills, a decentralized collection of roughly 70 operating subsidiaries, and a $271 billion equity portfolio. The file turns on two interlocking questions: whether Abel can sustain both the underwriting discipline that makes Berkshire's insurance float a costless source of investment capital and the capital-allocation judgment that turned that float into a compounding machine; and whether the premium the market historically attached to Buffett's presence will transfer to an operator-led era, or whether a conglomerate discount reasserts itself.

The answer is not obvious in either direction. The operating businesses are mostly durable and well-managed; the balance sheet is the envy of every financial institution on earth. But GEICO is losing ground to Progressive, PacifiCorp's wildfire liabilities represent a genuine tail risk, and a $397 billion cash hoard earning T-bill yields is a drag on returns that grows with every quarter of inaction. This is a file about a great collection of businesses at a moment when leadership, capital deployment, and the market's narrative are all in flux.