Berkshire Hathaway’s fourth-quarter operating earnings fall 8%

Berkshire Hathaway’s operating profit fell during the fourth quarter as inflationary pressures weighed on the business operations of the conglomerate. Berkshire Hathaway’s operating earnings totaled $6.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, a release read Saturday. That’s down 7.9% from the year-earlier period when profits totaled $7.285 billion. Operating earnings refer to the total profits made from conglomerate-owned businesses. Earnings from Berkshire’s railroad, utilities, and energy businesses came in at $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, which is slightly down from the year-ago period. Meanwhile, the firm’s insurance-underwriting business fell to $244 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from $372 million in the year-earlier period.

For the year, the conglomerate’s operating earnings totaled $30.793 billion. That’s up 12.2% from $27.455 billion in 2021. Meanwhile, Berkshire used $2.855 billion to buy back shares in the fourth quarter. That’s lower than the year-earlier period when share repurchases totaled more than $6 billion but more than the third quarter’s repurchase total of around $1 billion. Berkshire bought back nearly $8 billion in common stock for the year. Despite this, Berkshire’s cash hoard grew to $128.651 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022. That’s up from nearly $109 billion in the third quarter. Buffett said in his annual shareholder letter that Berkshire would continue to hold a “boatload” of cash, U.S. Treasury bills, and its myriad businesses. He specified that future CEOs in the company would have a “significant part” of their net worth in Berkshire shares.