Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway exceeds one trillion dollars in market value
The valuation is based on Berkshire’s 553,234 Class A shares and 1,325,192,508 Class B shares outstanding as of July 23. Berkshire has slowed its share buybacks this year.
In morning trading, Class A shares rose 0.7% to $696,005.94.
Berkshire’s dozens of insurance, energy, manufacturing, retail and services companies generated $22.8 billion in profit in the first half of the year, up 26 percent from the previous year.
The companies include Geico auto insurance, BNSF railroad, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Brooks running shoes, Dairy Queen ice cream, Ginsu knives and the World Book encyclopedia.
Berkshire also has a huge stock portfolio led by Apple, although the company has sold more than half of its Apple shares this year.
Stock sales are a key reason Berkshire’s holdings of cash and equivalents rose to $276.9 billion as of June 30, mostly in the form of U.S. Treasury bills.
Buffett, who turns 94 on August 30, has led Berkshire since 1965.
By the time Berkshire’s value hit $1 trillion, shares had gained more than 5,600,000% since Buffett took over as CEO.
Buffett still owns more than 14 percent of the Omaha, Nebraska-based company, although he has donated more than half of his shares to charity since 2006.
As of Tuesday, Buffett’s net worth was approximately $144.9 billion, making him the sixth richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
As of Tuesday, Berkshire shares had risen 27 percent this year, while the S&P 500 had gained just 18 percent.
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Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Franklin Paul and Nick Zieminski
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