The Berkshire Beat: November 7, 2025
All of the latest Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway news!
Happy Friday and welcome to our new subscribers!
Special thanks, too, to those who recently became paid supporters! ❤️
This week, following the release of Berkshire Hathaway’s third quarter results, a few longtime Warren Buffett observers weighed in across the internet with thoughts on the conglomerate’s recent performance.
Greggory Warren of Morningstar — who once sat on the analyst panel at Berkshire’s annual meeting — described the numbers as “basically in line with our expectations”. As such, he plans to hold the line with his current $765,000 fair value estimate on Class A shares and $510 on Class B shares, calling Berkshire “modestly undervalued”.
Whitney Tilson, meanwhile, boosted his intrinsic value estimate for Berkshire to $802,000 (A) and $535 (B). “I expect,” he wrote, “that Berkshire’s stock will modestly beat the S&P 500 index over the next five years.”
In Tilson’s note, he also included a short analysis from his former hedge fund partner Glenn Tongue that suggests Berkshire might soon start repurchasing shares again. “Buffett last repurchased shares in the second quarter of 2024,” said Tongue, “at around $630,000 per A-share ($420 per B-share). Five quarters later at 10% annual growth in intrinsic value equates to around $709,000 per A-share ($473 per B-share) — almost exactly where the shares are today.”
Overall, he considers Berkshire in fine shape as the Buffett era draws to a close. “The big picture takeaway is Berkshire is attractively valued and is growing at an impressive rate for a trillion-dollar market cap company,” said Tongue. “Messrs. Buffett and Munger have always said they wanted to build Berkshire into a powerful, resilient company with a Fort Knox balance sheet. No doubt they succeeded.”
Last but certainly not least, Christopher Bloomstran told the Financial Times that this was a “solid quarter across the board” for Berkshire. He also sounded a bullish note about vice chairman Greg Abel’s future as CEO. “Greg is perfectly suited to take the reins from Warren,” he said. “He gets it. I think he’s the ideal guy to run the business.”
Bloomstran, likewise, praised Berkshire’s $9.7 billion acquisition of OxyChem as “a nice bolt-on deal, essentially paying about 10x mid-cycle free cash earnings for well-maintained chlor-alkali assets”.
And, now, the latest news and notes out of Omaha…
Last evening, Berkshire Hathaway issued a press release — titled “It’s Not Me” — about AI-generated videos purporting to be of Warren Buffett offering financial advice. “Mr. Buffett is concerned that these types of fraudulent videos are becoming a spreading virus,” it read. “Individuals who are less familiar with Mr. Buffett may believe these videos are real and be misled by the contents of these videos.”
The note also reiterated that Buffett will release a message on Monday “regarding philanthropy, Berkshire, and other matters that Berkshire shareholders and others may find to be of interest”.
Bloomberg bid a “wistful farewell” to Warren Buffett’s annual letters, now that it has been confirmed that Greg Abel will take over writing duties in the new year. “Buffett didn’t dream up most of the ideas that he espoused, many came straight out of [Benjamin] Graham’s teachings, but he brought them to the masses through the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. annual letters and gave us all a proof of concept through the company’s extraordinary performance,” wrote Jonathan Levin. “In doing so, he earned his place as our greatest investor and our leading finance and investing writer.”
Brooks Running CEO Dan Sheridan told Yahoo Finance that the shoemaker’s revenue increased 17% in the third quarter — with all regions and channels chipping in with double-digit growth. He also paid homage to Buffett and the unique advantages of being a Berkshire subsidiary. “Warren Buffett is the GOAT of capitalism,” said Sheridan. “I mean, is there anybody who’s done it better? How fortunate we are as a brand to be owned by Berkshire Hathaway. There is so much guidance and wisdom that we’ve had from Warren over the years — and, now, Greg is stepping into this role. I always say I’ve got the greatest job in the industry because of our ownership structure.”
Sheridan also revealed that Brooks will not punish consumers (and possibly slow its own remarkably consistent growth) by drastically hiking prices in response to tariffs. Instead, he’s aiming for a modest 2-3% price increase next year.
The PacifiCorp saga took a few interesting twists and turns this week. The beleaguered Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary announced that Darin Carroll, who previously worked at Texas-based CenterPoint Energy, will replace Cindy Crane as CEO effective November 12. “Carroll is a seasoned utility leader bringing a proven track record of operational excellence focused on enhanced customer outcomes,” the company said in an emailed statement. “Cindy Crane will remain as chair of the PacifiCorp board of directors and, in this role, will continue to offer her experience and guidance to PacifiCorp leadership with a focus on stabilization efforts.”
And, believe me, there is much to stabilize — as the wildfire litigation that has engulfed PacifiCorp in recent years continues to rear its ugly head. In a regulatory filing this week, PacifiCorp warned that the breakneck pace of trials — and cash requirements for unfavorable judgments — could threaten its liquidity and investment-grade status. It has asked that the remaining damages trials be put on hold until the appeals process plays out.
But, sadly, that’s not all. Amazon filed a formal complaint with the Oregon Public Utility Commission alleging that PacifiCorp did not provide sufficient power to four data centers operated by the e-commerce giant. PacifiCorp pushed back in a statement, saying that it “has been acting in good faith to serve Amazon’s significant load in a manner that supports Amazon’s operational goals and also protects PacifiCorp’s existing customers from increased costs and reliability issues”. The utility added that while it remains open to discussions with Amazon to resolve the issue, it has acted “consistent with Oregon law, which ensures new data center loads do not jeopardize customer affordability”.
BNSF Railway and the Swinomish Indian Tribe settled their long-standing legal dispute over railroad cars trespassing on tribal land. Last year, a federal judge awarded $394 million to the plaintiffs after BNSF violated an agreement by running too many cars across tribal land in northwest Washington. Financial terms of the settlement remain confidential, but BNSF will now only run one train carrying crude oil across the reservation each day as well as “a limited number of additional rail cars” as part of BNSF’s local operations. “We look forward to working with the Tribe and further strengthening our new partnership,” said CEO Katie Farmer. “We are excited for the future opportunity our partnership represents for the Tribe and our customers.”
And, finally, a few odds and ends to finish off the week…
Bloomberg reports that Berkshire is gearing up for another yen-denominated bond sale, which would be its second of the year.
Today, Berkshire collects $3 million in quarterly dividends from Mastercard.
BNSF Railway again spoke out against the proposed Union Pacific x Norfolk Southern merger, calling it a “straight Wall Street transaction” that would neither expand network capacity nor create fresh investment.
Coca-Cola’s spicy cherry soda Mr. Pibb is making a “new-stalgic” return to store shelves this fall in select markets — with a national rollout planned for 2026.
Louisiana-Pacific CEO Brad Southern announced that he will retire in February — with Jason Ringblom, the company’s current president, set to replace him. (Berkshire owns 8.1% of the building materials manufacturer.)
The November edition of Uncommon Sense will go out to paid supporters early next week. This one is a collection of all the big ideas and lessons from the 1999 Berkshire annual shareholders meeting — and is shaping up to be one of my favorites. So, if you’ve been considering an upgrade, now is the perfect time.