By Heather Gillers

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reported a 4% drop in quarterly earnings after results from the conglomerate's insurance businesses weakened from a year ago.

The company also said Saturday that its cash pile grew to a record $344 billion, including equivalents, at the end of June. It was $333 billion at the end of March.

Berkshire, which owns businesses including insurer Geico and railroad BNSF Railway, posted a net income of $12.37 billion, or $8,601 per Class A share equivalent, for the second quarter. That compared with a net income of $30.3 billion, or $21,122 a share, in the year-earlier period.

Operating earnings, which exclude some investment results, fell 4% to $11.16 billion from $11.6 billion a year earlier. Insurance-underwriting results fell from a year earlier, offsetting gains from its railroad, energy, and manufacturing, service and retail businesses. Last year was a blockbuster year for insurers, the second of two years of double-digit price hikes.

Berkshire's operating earnings exceeded last year's, however, when the impact of currency moves is netted out. Some of Berkshire's debt is borrowed in British pounds, euros and Japanese yen and the company restates those amounts in U.S. dollars as part of Berkshire's operating earnings. In the second quarter, when the dollar declined in value, currency moves led Berkshire to reduce after-tax operating earnings by $877 million. Last year, those moves created a gain of approximately $446 million.

Buffett has said that operating earnings are the better measure of the company's performance. Accounting rules require Berkshire to include unrealized gains and losses from its giant investment portfolio when it reports net income, meaning that short-term fluctuations in the stock market can cause big swings in quarterly income.

Berkshire's cash pile gives Buffett fuel to add new companies to his empire but also spotlights the firm's challenges finding attractively priced investments.

Buffett, who will retire as Berkshire's chief executive in December, has in recent years refrained from large-scale acquisitions, sold some stocks from its investment portfolio and declined to buy back its own shares. In his annual letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote in February that "the great majority of your money remains in equities. That preference won't change."

The company said it didn't repurchase any of its own shares during the period, marking the fourth-straight quarter in which Berkshire has passed on buying back any stock.

The company has said that it can buy back stock whenever Buffett, its chairman and chief executive, "believes that the repurchase price is below Berkshire's intrinsic value, conservatively determined." Berkshire's Class A shares reached a record high of $809,350 on May 2, right before Buffett announced he was stepping down as CEO at the end of the year. The shares closed Friday at $711,480.

Berkshire was a net seller of stocks for the 11th consecutive quarter. The company sold $6.92 billion of equity securities in the three months ending in June. It bought $3.9 billion in the same quarter.

Meantime, the stock market's rally has made many potential deals and stock purchases more expensive.

The S&P 500 climbed more than 10% during the second quarter, and by June had reached an all-time high.

Write to Heather Gillers at heather.gillers@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 02, 2025 08:53 ET (12:53 GMT)

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