Berkshire says it bought back nearly $ 1 billion of its own stock
Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate operated by billionaire Warren Buffett, said on Saturday that operating profit in the third quarter almost doubled when the insurance business dodged hurricanes and benefited from lower taxes.
The strong result gave Mr. Buffett more money to distribute, and he used a portion of it to buy back nearly $ 1 billion in the company's share.
Operating profit in the quarter doubled to $ 6.88 billion from $ 3,444 billion the year before, higher than the $ 6.11 billion expected by Wall Street, according to data from Refinitiv.
The insurance business of the company was helped by lower estimated liabilities from property and non-life insurance than in previous years, and with lower taxes. The insurance companies' bottom lines last year were hit by huge losses due to three hurricanes in the United States and an earthquake in Mexico.
Insurance guarantees were $ 441 million in the third quarter, compared with a loss of $ 1.4 billion in the same period a year ago.
Berkshire's results have also improved across rail, tools and energy, manufacturing, service and retail and financial products.
"This is certainly one of the biggest quarterly earnings reports that ever came out of an American company," said Bill Smead, CEO of Smead Capital Management in Seattle, a shareholder in Berkshire.
Berkshire said that net income in The third quarter increased more than 355 percent to $ 18.5 billion, although a new accounting rule reflects that it reports unrealized investment gains on earnings.
Berkshire also said that it had purchased 928 million dollars of own shares in the third quarter. 19659002] Berkshire ended September with $ 103.6 billion in cash, short-term government bonds and other similar investments.
Mr. Buffet's last major acquisition was in January 2016 when Berkshire paid about $ 32 billion to the expansion Castparts component .
Berkshires A shares closed Friday to $ 308,411.01 a share that gave a total return of 3.6 percent t for the year, slightly ahead of 3.4 percent return on Standard & Poor's 500 index index.
Mr. Smead said it was reasonable for Mr. Buffett to buy back shares.
He is the most successful value investor all the time, and the company's inventory relative to book value is in extreme value in a world where value is incredibly attractive. "