End of ‘The Berkshire Way’? Combs’ departure isn’t only big change as Buffett transition nears

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AUDIENCE MEMBER: What has been the single best investment of your careers?

WARREN BUFFETT: Probably, in terms of what it’s done already and where it’s going to go over time, probably the single best investment was the first half of GEICO, which we purchased for $40 million. Now the second half cost us 2 billion. I’m glad I didn’t buy it in thirds. (Laughter)

But, you know, that 40 million will — for half the company — will turn out very well.

But GEICO — some of our businesses have growth potential, some don’t. And we don’t require growth potential as part of a business.

If a business makes good money and we can use it to buy other businesses, one of the advantages of the Berkshire system is we have a tax efficient and kind of frictionless way of moving money to the best opportunities. And GEICO, internally, has still enormous possibilities for growth.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, but GEICO, after all, cost $2 billion for the second half and —

WARREN BUFFETT: Right.

CHARLIE MUNGER:  — a significant number of tens of millions for the first half.

Now the search expenses that brought us Ajit Jain, now there was an investment that really paid a dividend.

I can think of no higher return investment that we’ve ever made that was better than that one. (Applause)

And I think that’s a good life lesson. In other words, getting the right people into your system can frequently be more important than anything else. 

Four weeks

Twelve months

BRK.A stock price: $748,887.00

BRK.B stock price: $499.52

BRK.B P/E (TTM): 15.97

Berkshire market capitalization: $1,077,426,505,703

Berkshire Cash as of September 30: $381.7 billion (Up 10.9% from June 30)

Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $354.3 billion (Up 4.3% from June 30)

No Berkshire stock repurchases since May 2024.

(All figures are as of the date of publication, unless otherwise indicated)