The US star investor Warren Buffett has earned with his investment company Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year, significantly less.

In the three months to end-December, the operating profit in the year fell by 23 per cent to 4.4 billion dollars (4.1 billion euros), as Berkshire Hathaway announced in Omaha. Especially in the reinsurance business - an important pillar of Buffett's conglomerate - it ran worse.

Buffett is sitting on huge cash reserves

Buffett remains under the high pressure to invest, the a lot of excess money of Berkshire Hathaway. At the end of the year, the cash reserves amounted to more enormous in-128 billion dollars. Shareholders tendons already brought in a long time, the next big Takeover. Instead, Buffett relies more and more on share repurchases for this purpose was expended in the final quarter of the record amount of 2.2 billion dollars.

Buffett refuses for some time to cope with larger Take. "We are constantly looking to buy new companies that meet three criteria," he writes. "First, you need to earn well. Secondly, you need to be capable and honest managers directed. And finally, you need to be available at a reasonable cost." Especially the third point is some time difficult: The prices on the share markets have risen because of the loose monetary policy of the Central banks. Berkshire Hathaway A 317.000,00 EUR -500,00 (-0,16%) Tradegate

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expressed To the rate of data

Also, the ECB is concerned about the Boom on the stock exchanges: "It was noted, the gains in the stock market with an improvement in the profit Outlook for [the company] in connection“, - stated in the protocols to the Council meeting in January. Similar to how in the US, this pointed to the fact that the financial had disconnected markets and the subdued Outlook for the real economy. The continued increase in the valuations on the stock markets was just hard for me to reconcile with the "weaker earnings prospects on both sides of the Atlantic" and "ubiquitous uncertainty" in line.

Buffett reassured shareholders

In his annual letter to shareholders, the 89-year-old Buffett also addressed the question of the future of Berkshire, when he and his 96-year-old Deputy Charlie Munger assign once. "Shareholders need not worry: Our company is prepared 100 percent." The younger Berkshire-Manager Ajit Jain and Greg Abel are considered as big favorites, one day, the successor.

Berkshire Hathaway's net income in the latest quarter of 29.2 billion dollars, after it had, in the prior-year period, a loss of 25.4 billion. Buffett himself recommends, however, always, to give this number, not a great deal of attention. Due to the recognition of unrealised investment gains varies strongly and has little significance in terms of the actual business performance.

Berkshire Hathaway belong to the 90 companies, additionally, there are various packages of shares of listed corporations such as Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, or Apple - the iPhone-the group has now developed into Buffett's great darling. Because of their Riechers for lucrative investments, the "Oracle of Omaha" called investors legend leads the conglomerate for more than 50 years. Forbes estimates Buffett's wealth at around 90.2 billion dollars.

Berkshire Hathaway's earned a little less

for The full year 2019 Berkshire Hathaway's operating profit fell by three percent to 24.0 billion dollars (€22.1 bn). The net result reached thanks to the strong price of some of the share gains holdings to a new high of 81.4 billion dollars. However, it was Buffett, by and Large, a rather difficult year in which the shares of Berkshire Hathaway with a gain of only 10.9 percent developed significantly weaker than that of the booming U.S. stock markets as a whole.

csf/dpa Date Of Update: 23 February 2020, 13:00