By Jonathan Stempel
Feb 28 (Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway said on Saturday operating profit fell in the fourth quarter, reflecting lower income from its insurance operations, and wrote down a longstanding investment in Occidental Petroleum.
The quarter was Warren Buffett’s last as the conglomerate’s chief executive, a job now held by Greg Abel. Buffett remains chairman.
Berkshire reported ending 2025 with $373.3 billion of cash, giving Abel the firepower to make the kind of major acquisitions that eluded Buffett over the last decade.
The quarter was also the 13th in a row in which Berkshire sold more stocks than it bought, and the sixth straight with no share buybacks.
Quarterly operating profit fell 30% to $10.2 billion, or about $7,092 per Class A share, from $14.53 billion a year earlier.
Much of this came from a 38% drop in quarterly insurance profit. Falling interest rates reduced income on Berkshire’s cash, while pricing pressures limited the willingness of the Geico auto insurer and reinsurance businesses to add customers.
ABEL PAYS TRIBUTE TO BUFFETT
Net income fell 3% to $19.2 billion from $19.69 billion, as the writedown and lower operating profit offset the value of Berkshire’s holdings in Apple, American Express and other stocks.
For the full year, operating profit fell 6% to $44.49 billion, while net income fell 25% to $66.97 billion.
Buffett had long urged investors to ignore fluctuations in Berkshire’s net income, which reflect accounting rules that require Berkshire to report gains and losses on stocks that Berkshire is not selling.
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 maintain his discipline in investing Berkshire’s capital.
“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 businesses needed better operating performance. He is widely expected to have a more hands-on role than Buffett in overseeing them, though the businesses are expected to maintain their general 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.”
DECLINE IN OCCIDENTAL SHARE PRICE NOT TEMPORARY
Berkshire’s $4.5 billion writedown of its 26.9% stake in Occidental reflected its belief that the oil company’s declining stock price was not “temporary,” though it said it had no intention to sell any of its stock.
Buffett began investing in Occidental in 2019 by helping finance that company’s purchase of Anadarko Petroleum, and has often praised Occidental’s leadership.
The writedown was Berkshire’s second in 2025, in addition to a $3.76 billion writedown of its investment in Kraft Heinz.
Geico said pretax underwriting profit fell by nearly half in the fourth quarter, as it spent more on advertising and accident claims increased.
Profit at the BNSF railroad rose 6% in the fourth quarter, while profit from Berkshire’s energy operations fell 5%.
Berkshire also said profit from its manufacturing, retail and service businesses rose 3% in the quarter and 4% for the year, even as “sluggish” consumer demand contributed to full-year revenue declines at some consumer businesses, including Duracell, Fruit of the Loom and Squishmallows maker Jazwares.
Lower gains related to foreign currency also weighed on operating profit.
Berkshire shares have lagged the Standard & Poor’s 500 by more than 27 percentage points since Buffett announced May 3 he was stepping down. Berkshire shares and the index have both risen less than 1% in 2026.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Louise Heavens, Lisa Shumaker, Rod Nickel)
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