Berkshire Hathaway profit falls on lower insurance earnings, Occidental

Berkshire Hathaway profit falls on lower insurance earnings, Occidental

Berkshire Hathaway said on Saturday working profit fell in the fourth quarter, reflecting lower earnings from its insurance operations, and wrote down a longstanding funding in Occidental Petroleum. 

The quarter was Warren Buffett’s last as the conglomerate’s chief government, a job now held by Greg Abel. Buffett stays chairman.

Berkshire reported ending 2025 with $373.3 billion of money, giving Abel the firepower to make the sort of major acquisitions that eluded Buffett over the last decade.

Berkshire Hathaway said its fourth-quarter profit fell 30% to $10.2 billion. REUTERS

The quarter was also the thirteenth in a row wherein Berkshire offered more shares than it purchased, and the sixth straight with no share buybacks.

Quarterly working profit fell 30% to $10.2 billion, or about $7,092 per Class A share, from $14.53 billion a 12 months earlier.

Much of this got here from a 38% drop in quarterly insurance profit. Falling rates of interest decreased earnings on Berkshire’s money, while pricing pressures restricted the willingness of the Geico auto insurer and reinsurance companies so as to add clients.

Net earnings fell 3% to $19.2 billion from $19.69 billion, as the writedown and lower working profit offset the worth of Berkshire’s holdings in Apple, American Express, and other shares.

For the full 12 months, working profit fell 6% to $44.49 billion, while web earnings fell 25% to $66.97 billion.

Buffett had lengthy urged traders to disregard fluctuations in Berkshire’s web earnings, which mirror accounting guidelines that require Berkshire to report positive factors and losses on shares that Berkshire will not be promoting.

In his first annual letter to Berkshire shareholders, Abel paid tribute to his mentor, calling Buffett a “remarkable CEO” and “arguably the greatest investor of all time” and pledging to keep up his self-discipline in investing Berkshire’s capital.

Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett stepped down as chief government at the end of last 12 months. AP

“We are committed to strengthening the great legacy built by Warren Buffett and his business partner Charlie Munger, ensuring it endures through our commitment to excellence,” Abel wrote, referring to Berkshire’s late vice chairman. “I recognize how you want us to succeed together, and to do so in the right way.”

Abel also said some of Berkshire’s companies wanted better working performance. He is widely anticipated to have a more hands-on position than Buffett in overseeing them, though the companies are anticipated to keep up their common day-to-day autonomy.

“Top-line growth is a challenge, and Abel teed up an expectation that reinsurance and commercial insurance growth may be nonexistent in 2026,” said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research in New York. “Revenue growth across the board was also pretty tepid.”

Berkshire’s $4.5 billion writedown of its 26.9% stake in Occidental mirrored its perception that the oil company’s declining inventory value was not “temporary,” though it said it had no intention to promote any of its inventory.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel, proper, and his spouse, Andrea Abel, in 2023. Getty Images

Buffett started investing in Occidental in 2019 by serving to finance that company’s buy of Anadarko Petroleum, and has often praised Occidental’s management.

The writedown was Berkshire’s second in 2025, along with a $3.76 billion writedown of its funding in Kraft Heinz.

Geico said pretax underwriting profit fell by practically half in the fourth quarter, because it spent more on promoting and accident claims elevated.

Profit at the BNSF railroad rose 6% in the fourth quarter, while profit from Berkshire’s power operations fell 5%.

Berkshire also said profit from its manufacturing, retail and repair companies rose 3% in the quarter and 4% for the 12 months, even as “sluggish” client demand contributed to full-year income declines at some client companies, including Duracell, Fruit of the Loom and Squishmallows maker Jazwares.

Lower positive factors associated to international forex also weighed on working profit.

Berkshire shares have lagged the Standard & Poor’s 500 by more than 27 proportion factors since Buffett announced May 3 he was stepping down. Berkshire shares and the index have each risen less than 1% in 2026.

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