The Berkshire Beat: August 15, 2025

All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!

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Yesterday, Berkshire Hathaway filed its 13F — offering a rare peek behind the curtain at Warren Buffett and co.’s investment activity during the second quarter.

(h/t DATAROMA)

(1) While Berkshire’s headline-grabbing purchase of more than 5 million shares in UnitedHealth Group dominated much of the coverage surrounding this 13F release, that was not the mystery stock from the first quarter. Or, should I say, mystery stocks. Someone at Berkshire quietly opened positions in steel producer Nucor and homebuilders D.R. Horton and Lennar (Class A) in the first quarter.

If the latter two names sound familiar, that’s because Berkshire holds a very small position in Lennar’s Class B shares and briefly owned DHI 0.00%↑ back in 2023. In a surprising twist, the conglomerate entered and exited its previous D.R. Horton position in the space of several months. And, while Berkshire continued to add to Nucor and Lennar in the second quarter, it seems to have already trimmed Horton.

(2) The three newbies for Q2 are UnitedHealth Group, outdoor billboard giant Lamar Advertising, and security provider Allegion. All three are small-ish positions — with UNH 0.00%↑ leading the way at ~$1.5 billion and the others well under $200 million a piece — which makes it difficult to ascertain who did the buying.

There’s no question that UnitedHealth has been through the wringer of late — grappling with a devastating cyberattack, the tragic murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the subsequent (and sudden) resignation of the parent company CEO a few months ago, a Department of Justice investigation into alleged Medicare irregularities, and a downward revision to the current year outlook. With that parade of horribles in mind, it’s not too surprising that UnitedHealth’s stock price has fallen 46.2% so far this year.

(3) Warren Buffett made a few small moves among Berkshire’s top-five holdings. He chopped another 20 million shares off Apple and 26.3 million from Bank of America. Apple remains in clear-cut #1 position atop the portfolio with a current value of $65.2 billion, while BAC 0.00%↑ now clings to just a ~$1 billion lead over Coca-Cola for third place. (American Express, of course, is still a solid second.) I don’t know if this makes me a “round number theory” truther, but it still strikes me as quite odd that Buffett’s Apple sales continue to occur in round-number increments. In Q2, he sold exactly 20 million shares of AAPL 0.00%↑ to leave a nice round 280 million shares in the portfolio.

• Buffett also topped up the tank with another 3.5 million shares of Chevron.

(4) The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Berkshire continued to add to recent favorites Pool Corp., Constellation Brands, HEICO, and Dominos Pizza. And, on the flip side, Liberty Media Formula One Series C got cut for the third-straight quarter — with Charter Communications even worse off at an unlucky four quarters of sales in a row. T-Mobile, meanwhile, got the ax altogether.

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And, now, on to the latest news and notes out of Omaha…

Take this one with a heaping pile of salt, but several trade publications are reporting that Berkshire Hathaway quietly acquired rodent control company Bell Laboratories last month. The claim stems from a press release allegedly distributed by Bell to these industry outlets, though it has not yet been posted publicly. According to this unseen document, Berkshire snapped up Bell for an undisclosed amount on July 31, 2025. Warren Buffett, Greg Abel, and Howard Buffett reportedly visited Bell’s headquarters in Wisconsin last week. “Mr. Buffett congratulated Bell on 50 years of success,” CEO Steve Levy was quoted as saying, “and shared that, because of this transaction, Bell can expect to be around for the next 50 years.” Chief Commercial Officer Patrick Lynch also praised Berkshire’s “commitment to preserving our leadership and culture”. But, I must emphasize again, there is no official confirmation for any of this outside of the pest control media space. (I didn’t even know that was a thing before this week.) Berkshire has not denied these reports, though.

• Even if this all turns out to be true, Bell Laboratories is not exactly the elephant that Buffett has long hunted. RocketReach lists the company’s revenue at just $94.8 million, so this deal probably didn’t put too big of a dent in Berkshire’s $340 billion cash mountain. That said, Bell’s steady niche in rodent control lines up well with Berkshire’s affinity for reliable, some-might-even-say-unglamorous companies that deliver consistent value.

Berkshire launched its new BH Jewelry Group — that will include (at least) Helzberg and Ben Bridge. The new group will fall under the leadership of Helzberg CEO Brad Hampton, while Lisa Bridge (the fifth-generation head of Ben Bridge) will depart due to this “different direction for the company”. A Helzberg spokesperson noted that the two brands “will maintain [their] separate name, experience, and customer. We serve different market segments and regions — that doesn’t change. What is new is the opportunity for each organization to benefit from the shared knowledge and experience gained from more than two centuries combined.” No word yet if Buffett-fave Borsheims or jewelry manufacturer Richline will also be lumped into this group.

Last week, I mentioned that Berkshire’s recent sale of Davita stock was likely tied to the Share Repurchase Agreement, which caps the conglomerate’s ownership at 45%. A reader kindly pointed me towards Davita CFO Joel Ackerman’s remarks during the company’s Q2 2025 earnings call — which confirms my suspicion. “[Berkshire’s sale] was in a normal course,” he said. “It was pursuant to the standstill agreement that we have with them.” Case closed.

A big part of BH Primary’s underperformance in the second quarter can be laid at the feet of GUARD. On Wednesday, AM Best affirmed the group’s superior financial strength and credit ratings — but assigned it a negative outlook due to “the continuation of the sharp deterioration in GUARD’s underwriting results that began in the 2023 calendar year”. And, while its core workers’ compensation business “continues to perform solidly”, the same cannot be said for GUARD’s commercial auto and business owners’ lines. Fingers crossed that the group’s new senior leadership — with a sharpened focus on profitable business — can engineer a speedy turnaround.

• GUARD’s “superior” ratings from AM Best are largely attributable to the financial backing of its parent company and internal reinsurance contracts with Berkshire-owned National Indemnity Company.

This might not be Berkshire-related per se, but I’ve always considered Howard Marks and his popular financial memos to be at least Berkshire-adjacent — owing to their easy readability and wide-ranging lessons. Yesterday, Marks released a new memo that tackled the age-old tension between price and value — and offered his thoughts on whether or not our current market is overvalued. The whole thing is well worth a read, but I’ve pulled out a few of my favorite lines from The Calculus of Value down below.

Dividends keep rolling into Omaha. This week, Berkshire collected $72.8 million in quarterly dividends from Apple, $13.7 million from Constellation Brands, $8.7 million from Ally Financial, and $3.1 million from Aon.