Berkshire Buys Back $9.6 Billion as Operating Profit Falls 6%

Berkshire Hathaway spent $9.6 billion buying back its own stock in the third quarter, its biggest quarterly repurchase so far this year, even as the profits from its sprawling collection of businesses fell 5.8 percent. The results, released Saturday morning, offer the clearest picture yet of how the conglomerate is being run in its first full year under chief executive Greg Abel.

Berkshire Hathaway's global headquarters at Kiewit Plaza in Omaha, Nebraska. (File photo)

Berkshire reported operating earnings of $12.705 billion for the three months ended September 30, down from $13.485 billion a year earlier, according to the company's earnings release and quarterly filing, both dated November 7. Net earnings, which include the paper gains and losses on Berkshire's huge stock portfolio, fell 28 percent to $22.112 billion, or $15,502 per Class A share, from $30.796 billion a year earlier. Revenue rose 11 percent to $105.65 billion, the second straight quarter of double-digit growth.

The headline numbers tell only part of the story. Operating earnings — the profits from Berkshire's dozens of wholly owned businesses, from insurers and railroads to utilities and retailers — strip out investment gains and losses, which swing with the stock market. By that measure the business had a softer quarter, even as its cash pile kept growing and its new chief executive showed a greater willingness than his predecessor to put that money to work.

Insurance Drags as GEICO Stumbles

The drag came almost entirely from insurance, the engine room of Berkshire's empire. Underwriting profit — what an insurer earns from premiums after paying claims and costs — fell 43 percent to $1.352 billion. Overall insurance profit declined 26 percent, and insurance investment income fell 14 percent to $2.734 billion.

Car insurer GEICO was the main weak spot. Its pretax profit fell 45 percent as its loss ratio, the share of premiums paid out in claims, rose to 76.6 percent from 71.5 percent a year earlier. Reuters reported that higher accident losses, more advertising spending and price cuts all weighed on the unit.

Berkshire also took a $343 million currency loss on its non-dollar debt in the quarter, against a gain of $331 million a year earlier. Excluding that swing, third-quarter operating earnings were only 0.8 percent lower than a year earlier, according to calculations by The Edge, a research publication that analysed the filing.

For the first nine months of the year, the picture was stronger: operating earnings rose 8 percent to $37.03 billion. Investment gains, meanwhile, shrank to $9.4 billion in the quarter from $17.3 billion a year earlier — the main reason net earnings fell so sharply. Berkshire itself cautions investors against reading too much into that figure, noting in its release that the amount of investment gains or losses in any given quarter "is usually meaningless."

Warren Buffett at a Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in Omaha. Buffett, 96, is now chairman emeritus after handing the chief executive job to Greg Abel. (File photo: AFP)

Buybacks Accelerate Under Abel

The quarter's most striking number was the pace of share repurchases. Berkshire bought back about $9.6 billion of its own stock between July and September, more than double the $4.5 billion it spent in the second quarter, and about $2 billion more in the first four weeks of October. Total repurchases for the first nine months of 2026 reached about $14.4 billion, against $4.8 billion earlier in the year.

The acceleration matters because it is the clearest signal yet of how Abel, 64, is running the company differently from Warren Buffett. Reuters reported that the new chief executive has demonstrated a greater willingness than his predecessor to put the conglomerate's enormous cash hoard to use. Buffett, 96, had difficulty finding things to buy toward the end of his 60 years at the helm. He remains chairman emeritus after his son Howard Buffett replaced him as chairman in September.

The third quarter was Abel's third as chief executive since he took over from Buffett at the start of the year. Berkshire's biggest year for buybacks was 2021, when it repurchased $27 billion of stock. At the end of September there were 1,418,900 Class A equivalent shares outstanding.

A Record Cash Pile

Even after the buybacks and a string of acquisitions, Berkshire's cash mountain kept growing. A summary of the filing by Seeking Alpha put cash, cash equivalents and short-term securities at $377.4 billion at the end of September, a record high and up from $365.5 billion at the end of June. Reuters, using a narrower measure of cash and equivalents alone, put the figure at $356.9 billion, down from $380.2 billion six months earlier.

The pile gives Abel enormous firepower for deals, and he has already begun using it. Results this year reflected purchases of Occidental Petroleum's chemicals business for $9.4 billion and home builder Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion. Berkshire also owned $335.5 billion of stocks such as Alphabet, Apple and American Express at the end of September, Reuters reported, and its insurance float — the premiums held before claims are paid — stood at $178.5 billion.

A BNSF freight train. Earnings at Berkshire's railroad rose 19.3% in the third quarter. (File photo)

The Rest of the Empire Holds Up

Outside insurance, most of Berkshire's big businesses performed well. Earnings at the BNSF railroad climbed 19.3 percent, according to The Edge's analysis of the filing. Revenue growth of 11 percent was broad-based, though the company noted declines in some consumer businesses, including Fruit of the Loom underwear and Forest River recreational vehicles.

Operating earnings of about $8,954 per Class A share, as calculated by Reuters, came in ahead of the average analyst forecast of about $8,822 from four analysts surveyed by FactSet, according to the Associated Press. Berkshire urged investors to read its full quarterly filing, saying the summary in its press release "is not adequate for making an informed investment judgment."

What This Means

The quarter captures Berkshire at a hinge moment. The businesses Buffett spent six decades assembling are still throwing off enormous sums of money — $12.7 billion of operating profit in three months, even in a weak insurance quarter — but the insurance engine that funds everything else is under strain from rising claims costs at GEICO.

At the same time, the long-standing question of what Berkshire would do with its cash is starting to get an answer. Under Buffett, the pile grew for years because he found so little worth buying at prices he liked. Under Abel, the money is moving: $9.6 billion of buybacks in a single quarter, $2 billion more in October, and two multibillion-dollar acquisitions already closed this year. Buying back stock at scale is itself a statement — it signals that management believes Berkshire's own shares are the best available use of the money.

For shareholders, the trade-off is clear. Buybacks shrink the share count and lift per-share value for those who remain, but they also reduce the cash available for the kind of large acquisition that defined the Buffett era. The record cash pile means Abel does not have to choose yet: even after the quarter's spending, Berkshire still holds more than $350 billion in cash and short-term investments.

What Happens Next

Investors will be watching whether the buyback pace holds into the fourth quarter and whether GEICO's claims costs stabilise. Berkshire does not hold earnings calls, so the next detailed word from the company will come with its annual report early next year — and with Abel's first annual letter to shareholders as chief executive, which will be read closely for any further shift in capital allocation.

The December meeting of the Federal Reserve will also matter for Berkshire's insurance investment income, which fell 14 percent in the quarter, and for the value of its $335.5 billion stock portfolio. For now, the message of the third quarter is that the post-Buffett Berkshire is more willing to spend — on its own shares, on acquisitions, and on the bet that its operating businesses can outgrow a difficult insurance market.