Berkshire Hathaway is our oldest position. We have held it for almost 11 years, and it has been our largest position for most of that time. We have told you so much about Berkshire through the years that it is difficult not to repeat ourselves.
BRK is our core investment, and I would describe our view on the company this way: If I had to invest all my money in a single stock and could not touch it at all for 5–10 years, then I would choose BRK without any hesitation. It is a conglomerate consisting of individual investments the quality of which is well above average, with efficiency in capital allocation that is far above average, having an extraordinarily strong balance sheet, and with very low business risk.
All this comes at a valuation that is significantly below the market average. BRK’s earnings power, the determination of which requires a thorough understanding of its business and a good bit of manual labour, is somewhere just north of USD 50 billion a year. Therefore, the entire company, with its market capitalisation of USD 590 billion, trades at less than 12 times annual earnings. It is very realistic to expect BRK’s stock price to grow at an average rate of about 10% per year over the long term..."
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