Berkshire Hathaway's New CEO Greg Abel Spends a Chunk of the Company's Massive Cashpile

Berkshire Hathaway's new CEO Greg Abel deployed a substantial portion of the company's cash reserves in the second quarter, investing $10 billion in Google's parent company while repurchasing approximately $4.5 billion of its own shares.

The conglomerate reported second-quarter earnings Saturday, revealing that cash holdings had declined to $365.5 billion from nearly $400 billion at the end of March. The company added more than $21 billion in commercial, industrial and other stocks to its portfolio, though specific holdings will not be disclosed until a separate filing later this month.

Abel assumed the CEO role in January following Warren Buffett's retirement after six decades leading the company. Buffett remains as chairman.

CFRA Research analyst Cathy Seifert noted that the level of share repurchases should be encouraging to investors, though she expressed concern about Geico's performance, where underwriting profits fell 45% and trailed other major auto insurers. "I think there are two key takeaways that should encourage investors: The fact that they bought back shares after not having done things of this magnitude for several years now. And the other positive thing is the ability to produce the 10% operating revenue growth in the quarter," Seifert said.

The second-quarter repurchases represent a more substantial commitment to buybacks than the $234 million in the first quarter, though observers had anticipated between $5 billion and $11 billion based on Buffett's charitable donation filing in July. Most repurchases occurred in June. The company repurchased $78 billion of its own stock between 2018 and 2024.

Berkshire's reported net profit more than doubled to $25.667 billion, or $17,868.44 per Class A share, benefiting from paper gains in investments. Operating earnings, which Buffett emphasizes as a better indicator of company performance, grew to $12.983 billion, or $9,038.30 per Class A share, from $11.16 billion previously.

The company also completed a $6.8 billion acquisition of homebuilder Taylor Morrison in July, which does not factor into these quarterly results.