For years, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sat on a record hoard of cash and did remarkably little with it. In the second quarter, under new chief executive Greg Abel, that finally changed. The conglomerate said it began running down the pile — buying back its own shares, snapping up stocks, and ending a long stretch on the sidelines.
Where the money went
Berkshire repurchased about $4.5 billion of its own stock between April and June, and more than $3.3 billion again in July, accelerating buybacks it had restarted in March after a near-two-year pause. It also bought nearly $20 billion more shares than it sold — ending 14 straight quarters as a net seller — including a $10 billion top-up of its stake in Alphabet, Google's parent and now one of its largest holdings. The cash pile duly shrank, to about $364.7 billion from a record $380.2 billion three months earlier. That figure even absorbs $6.8 billion Berkshire spent in late July to buy US home builder Taylor Morrison. To put the buybacks in context, its biggest year was 2021, when it repurchased $27 billion of stock.
Under the bonnet
The operating business, the part Buffett always urged investors to judge, did its job: operating profit rose 16% to $12.98 billion, lifted by the BNSF railway and the manufacturing and retail arms. The weak spot was car insurer Geico, whose underwriting profit fell 45% as claims and marketing costs rose. Insurance float — the premiums Berkshire holds before it pays out claims — edged up to about $177.5 billion. On a per-share basis, net earnings worked out to $17,868 for each Class A share. Revenue, which had been stagnating, rose 10% to $101.81 billion. Headline net income more than doubled to $25.67 billion, but that figure is flattered by paper gains on shares that Berkshire itself tells investors to ignore.
It is the clearest sign yet of how Abel deploys capital in the post-Buffett era, with the founder still chairman. Berkshire still warns of “considerable uncertainty” from tariffs and wars, and its shares have trailed the wider US market this year. Where Abel points the cash next is the question hanging over the next results.
