Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. Omaha · Est. 1839
A Multinational Conglomerate · NYSE: BRK.A  ·  BRK.B

The art of
owning great
businesses.

Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. is a holding company built on a single, durable idea: acquire exceptional businesses, give them the autonomy to thrive, and hold them for the long run. From insurance and railroads to energy, manufacturing and retail, nearly ninety wholly-owned companies operate under one disciplined roof.

A Public-Service Presentation

This website was created by Sterling Cooper, Inc. as a public service to stockholders and other interested parties, as Warren Buffett has declined to modernize or maintain Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.'s online presence.

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≈ $1.1T
Market Capitalization
90 +
Operating Subsidiaries
≈ 392,000
People Employed
$382 B
Cash & Equivalents
01 — Source Documents

Begin with the originals.

The two primary source materials that underpin this presentation — published in their original form, freely available, and prepared with the care these companies deserve.

The Subsidiary Report

The Wholly-Owned Subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

PDF · 104 pages · Sterling Cooper Publishing

A complete illustrated directory of every Berkshire-owned operating company — with founding histories, headquarters, leadership and the role each plays within the enterprise. Compiled by Sterling Cooper Publishing Division as a public reference.

Open the Report
Official BRK Annual Report

Berkshire Hathaway 2025 Annual Report · Form 10‑K

PDF · Fiscal Year 2025 · Official SEC Filing

The official 2025 Annual Report on Form 10‑K, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — including financial statements, operating segment results, risk factors and the Chairman's letter to shareholders.

Open the 10‑K
02 — The Company

A portfolio of businesses, not a single industry.

Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, Berkshire Hathaway operates across a remarkably wide array of industries — insurance, railroads, utilities, manufacturing, retail and more. What distinguishes the company is its diversification strategy: it manages a robust portfolio of nearly ninety wholly-owned operating businesses rather than concentrating in any one market.

Alongside those operating companies, Berkshire holds significant equity stakes in some of the world's most recognized public companies — including Apple, Coca-Cola and American Express — reinforcing a prominent position in the global financial ecosystem.

That breadth is the point. Diversity provides stability through every cycle, and stability, compounded patiently over decades, is what builds enduring value.

Highest-priced stock in America
$700K+
A single Class A share has never been split. The price is a deliberate statement of values — it attracts long-term owners, not traders, and aligns shareholders with the company's multi-decade horizon.
03 — Where We Operate

Eleven sectors. One philosophy.

Each business runs independently under its own management, united by a shared commitment to integrity, quality and long-term thinking.

04 — The Investment Portfolio

Not only owned outright, but owned in part.

Beyond its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Berkshire holds one of the world's largest portfolios of public equities — concentrated, long-held positions in businesses with enduring advantages.

In addition, Berkshire holds substantial, long-term stakes in five Japanese trading houses — Itochu, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Marubeni and Sumitomo — among Warren Buffett's most celebrated international investments. Holdings shift over time; this reflects positions Berkshire has disclosed and held for years.

05 — Six Decades of Compounding

From a textile mill to a trillion-dollar enterprise.

06 — A Day with Berkshire

Closer to your life than you realize.

From the moment you wake until you fall asleep, a Berkshire-owned company is rarely far away — insuring your car, lighting your home, fueling your snack break, and underwriting the rail that moves the goods you buy.

7:00 AM

Your Coffee

Sweetened by See's chocolate, served on a Pampered Chef counter.

8:30 AM

Your Commute

Insured by GEICO; the freight and rail moved by BNSF.

12:30 PM

Your Lunch

A Dairy Queen Blizzard. A Heinz ketchup bottle on the table.

6:00 PM

Your Home

Powered by BHE, floored by Shaw, painted by Benjamin Moore.

7:30 PM

Your Plans

A jewel from Borsheims, a book from World Book, a chair from NFM.

9:00 PM

Your Travel

A Forest River RV, a NetJets share, or a Brooks running shoe.

All Night

Your Devices

Many of them owe their charge to Duracell batteries.

Always

Your Security

National Indemnity quietly stands behind some of the world's largest risks.

07 — The Two Share Classes

One company. Two classes of ownership.

Berkshire is unusual in offering two classes of common stock — a deliberate structure that lets long-term owners hold the legendary A shares while making partial ownership accessible to virtually every investor through the B shares.

"Our favorite holding period is forever. We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy only when others are fearful."

— The investment doctrine of Warren E. Buffett
The Family of Companies

The Subsidiaries

Nearly ninety wholly-owned businesses — each a leader in its field, each operated with autonomy, each chosen for the quality of its franchise and the people who run it. Search, filter and explore the family of companies that make up Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

90 companies
Subsidiary Report · PDF · 104 pp. Official BRK Annual Report · 10‑K
Stewardship

Leadership

A deliberate succession decades in the making. As of January 2026, Greg Abel serves as Chief Executive Officer; Warren Buffett remains Chairman. The structure ensures continuity of culture and capital discipline long beyond any single tenure.

Executive Leadership

Those who steward the enterprise.

The Investment Office

Stewards of the portfolio and the float.

Buffett long managed Berkshire's investments personally. Today a small, trusted circle carries that responsibility forward — proof that the discipline outlives any individual.

The Board of Directors

Counsel of uncommon depth.

The Ledger

By the Numbers

A trillion-dollar enterprise expressed in the figures that matter — scale, discipline, and the quiet power of compounding deployed patiently across six decades.

Insurance Float · Berkshire's Engine of Capital
A Compounding Machine

From a failing textile mill to a global powerhouse.

When Warren Buffett took control in 1965, Berkshire Hathaway was a struggling New England textile manufacturer with about $22 million in net worth. Over the following six decades, disciplined reinvestment transformed it into one of the most valuable companies on earth.

The engine has always been the same: insurance "float" — premiums held before claims are paid — deployed into wholly-owned businesses and public equities, with returns reinvested rather than distributed. Patience, not prediction, has been the strategy.

Compound annual gain · 1965–2024
19.9%
Berkshire's per-share market value has compounded at roughly 19.9% annually since 1965 — versus about 10.4% for the S&P 500 with dividends — producing a total gain that runs into the millions of percent.
First Principles

The Berkshire Way

No grand strategy department. No quarterly theatrics. No five-year plans. Just a handful of plain-spoken principles, applied with extraordinary consistency, for a very long time.

"It is far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price."

— Warren E. Buffett
I.

Buy to keep

Berkshire acquires businesses it intends to own permanently. The favored holding period is forever, which changes every incentive: management invests for decades, not for the next earnings call.

II.

Decentralize radically

The Omaha headquarters runs lean. The CEOs of each subsidiary handle day-to-day operations with near-total autonomy, trusted to know their businesses better than any corporate office could.

III.

Guard the moat

The company seeks businesses with durable competitive advantages — brands, scale, networks and franchises that competitors cannot easily replicate — and protects them above short-term profit.

IV.

Treat owners as partners

Shareholders are regarded as co-owners of the enterprise. Communication is candid, the annual letter is plain-spoken, and capital is deployed only where it earns its keep.

V.

Keep ample reserves

A fortress balance sheet — recently anchored by more than $380 billion in cash — is treated as a strategic asset. It lets Berkshire act decisively in turmoil and depend on no one.

VI.

Be rational, not emotional

Patience, temperament and intrinsic-value discipline beat forecasting. Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy only when others are fearful.

The Lexicon

The vocabulary of value investing.

A handful of ideas, borrowed from Benjamin Graham and refined over sixty years, explain almost everything about how Berkshire thinks.

"Price is what you pay; value is what you get."

— Warren E. Buffett

"The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting."

— Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman 1978 – 2023
In Memoriam

Charles T. Munger

For forty-five years, the indispensable partner — and the architect, by Buffett's own account, of the modern Berkshire philosophy.

CM

Charles T. Munger

Vice Chairman1924 — 2023 · Served 1978 – 2023

"A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price."

Charlie Munger joined Buffett as Vice Chairman in 1978 and remained at his side for forty-five years. Where the early Buffett, in the Graham tradition, hunted statistical bargains, it was Munger who insisted on a more enduring idea — that the right business, even at full price, would compound for decades in ways no cheap one ever could.

That single shift gave Berkshire See's Candies, then Coca-Cola, then Apple. It produced the doctrine of moats, the discipline of mental models, the marriage of patience and rationality that became the Berkshire signature. Buffett often said Munger pushed him past Ben Graham's narrow framework into a far wider, more lucrative world.

Charlie Munger died on November 28, 2023, weeks shy of his 100th birthday. His mind — exacting, contrarian, very funny — runs through every page of the company he helped build.

Woodstock for Capitalists

Each spring, tens of thousands of shareholders make the pilgrimage.

Drawing crowds of around 40,000 to the CHI Health Center, the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting is unlike any other in corporate America — part shareholder gathering, part festival of business, featuring hours of unscripted questions answered candidly by the company's leaders.

VENUE

Omaha

The CHI Health Center, in Berkshire's hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

ATTENDANCE

≈ 40,000

Shareholders travel from around the world each spring.

FORMAT

Q & A

Hours of unrehearsed questions, answered plainly from the stage.

SPIRIT

Owners First

The clearest expression of treating shareholders as true partners.