Berkshire Hathaway buys back $4.5 billion of its own shares
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. spent about $4.5 billion to buy back its own shares in the second quarter, providing shareholders with the largest quarterly payout since
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. spent about $4.5 billion to buy back its own shares in the second quarter, providing shareholders with the largest quarterly payout since 2021, as operating earnings surged. That metric climbed to 16% in the three months through June, to nearly $13 billion, driven in part by gains in the conglomerateās manufacturing, service and retailing division, the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate said Saturday in a statement. The firmās cash hoard fell to $365.5 billion in the second quarter, as its net purchases of equities reached nearly $20 billion in the period, a sign that Chief Executive Officer Greg Abel is putting more of the firmās cash pile to work.
Halfway through his first year at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, Abel has been praised by shareholders for his leadership. Still, Berkshireās Class B shares rose 3.8% this year as of market close Friday, compared with a roughly 13% gain for the S&P 500 ā a benchmark that Berkshire Chairman Warren Buffett himself frequently cited. Berkshireās earnings are typically closely watched because the conglomerateās businesses ā ranging from insurance to railroads to energy and manufacturing ā provide a snapshot of the health of the US economy.
Berkshire started buying back its own shares in the first quarter for the first time in more than a year. Earlier this year, Abel said Berkshire was restarting buybacks because executives found the āintrinsic valueā of those shares exceeded their market price. After years of relatively quiet deal activity under Buffett, who often complained of high market valuations, his successor sealed back-to-back multibillion-dollar transactions. The newly minted CEO spent $6.8 billion to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home Corp., a typical value bet, while also handing $10 billion to Google parent Alphabet Inc.
to support its investments related to artificial intelligence, a new area for the conglomerate.
The BriefWire