Berkshire Hathaway is an US-American getting thing enterprise, which originated in to 1955 from the fusion of the two textile companies Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Manufacturing.

From the outset the enterprise from Maine with the cheap competition from the south of the USA and the arising cheap imported goods from the Far East had to fight.

1965 took over the investor Warren Buffett for its 1956 created investment pool the majority of the portions and became the chairman of the enterprise. Already after short time it became clear it that the of the company does not have later large future (he called the acquisition errors). It began to reroute the still existing capital by investments in textile stranger participation. Thus it acquired 1967 one insurance (national Indemnity - Buffett should call this insurance retrospectively 1983 most important Kraft with the growth of Berkshire Hathaway) and 1969 a bank (Illinois national).

Gradually the textilen activities were stopped, the last factory was closed 1985. 1982 were fused Berkshire Hathaway with the participation and trading stamp company Blue chip Stamps, Buffetts friend and past president of Blue chip Stamps, Charles Munger, to the deputy chairman von Berkshire Hathaway.

Berkshire Hathaway acquired important participation (Coca-Cola, Gillette, The Washington post office) in the past decades enterprises, either completely (Nebraska Furniture Mart, Scott Fetzer, Shaw Industries) or.

Some business fields are the furniture business (R.C.Wiley among other things), shoes (H.H.Brown among other things), clothing (Fruit OF the Loom among other things), jet sharing (Net jet), Juweliere (Boersheims among other things), newspapers (The Buffalo news among other things), lebensmittelgrosshandel (McLane) and sweet goods (See's CAN this).

The emphasis of the business activity is appropriate however for a long time (already 1978 designated Buffett this business as largest Gewinnbringer) in the range of the first (GEICO) and for the reinsurance (general RH). Further Berkshire Hathaway is over the self-company Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group led by Ajit Jain the company leading world-wide, which insures over so-called "“super Cats"” insurer and against megadisasters. In the year 2003 the insurance range gained 64% of the Vorsteuergewinns.Buffett estimates at insurance the high freely available "“floats"” (premiums, which are already taken, but for cases of damage to be only later used must), which for investments be used can, a characteristic, which already early in its career to Blue chip Stamps invest it moved into the trading stamp company (Buffett designated Blue chip once as not adjusted insurance).

The enterprise paid no dividend since 1967, was never split the share. As concession Alta-casually however 1996 a new share category ("“baby Berkshires"”) were introduced on. A-shares can be exchanged since then (e.g. for a gift or as inheritance) in 30 B-shares. A back exchange is not possible, also the B-shares have only 1/200 right to vote.

Data

Today Berkshire Hathaway is one of the 25 largest companies of the USA and one the largest Steuerzahler.In the 66 fully controlled societies was busy by 31 December 2005 over 192.000 humans.

2005 became with a conversion of 81,6 Mrd.US $ (previous year: 74,4) a profit of 8,53 Mrd.US $ (previous year: 7,31) obtains. The profit per share amounted to 5538 US-$ (previous year: 4.753).

There are something over 1.5 million which are pending shares. Largest single shareholder is with approx. 31% Warren Buffett. Thus the market capitalization amounts to with market prices of approximately 90,000 US-$ 2006) scarcely 140 billion US-$.Der book value per share lay by 31 December 2005 with 59.377 US-$, the worth lies above it however according to Buffett.

At the end of of 2005 had Berkshire Hathaway liquid means of over 40 billion US-$, which could not be invested according to Buffett for lack of attractively evaluated investment objectives.

Remarkably the company beside Buffett (that only an annual salary of 100.000 $ refers) and the vice-president of many years Charles Munger has only 14 further persons employed. Reason for the fact is that Berkshire Hathaway has the intention with an acquisition never of leading well gemanagte successful societies themselves but the proven high-level personnel leaves the business activity. Berkshire Hathaway (Buffett and Munger) makes however the decision over it how the gained profits are re-used.

(quoted) participation of Berkshire Hathaway

• American Express (12.2%)
• Ameriprise Financial (12.1%)
• Anheuser shrubs (5.6%)
• Procter and Gamble (3.0%)
• back (88.8%)
• Nike (3.1%)
• Moody"´s (16.2%)
• Petro China (1.3 &)
• The Coca Cola company (8.4%)
• Whale Mart (0.5%)
• Washington post office (18%)
• Wells fargo & CO (5.7%)
• Wesco Financial (80%)
• White Mountains Insurance (16%)

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• Berkshire Hathaway (English)

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