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...and National Indemnity or the BNSF railroad....
...Buffett’s sprawling conglomerate, which owns the BNSF railroad and Geico insurer, first invested in the iPhone maker in 2016 at the direction of one of his two investment deputies: Todd Combs and Ted Weschler...
...There were, he said, few deals that offered the kind of transformative impact past takeovers have had, such as its purchases of insurers Geico and National Indemnity or the BNSF railroad....
...The acquisition by Berkshire, whose related interests include car insurer Geico and dealership Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, was regarded as a vote of confidence in the US economy and more particularly...
...The company’s Geico auto-insurer, which had struggled to cope with payouts on claims for much of the past two years, showed improvement....
...But investors said they would be closely scrutinising Buffett’s annual letter next February for any indications that change is afoot at the conglomerate, which counts insurer Geico and the BNSF railroad...
...The sprawling conglomerate is now worth more than $780bn, with stakes in Apple, Coca-Cola and Bank of America as well as ownership of the BNSF railroad and Geico insurer....
...Geico reported a second consecutive quarter of underwriting profits, following more than a year of losses....
...The release follows a promise this month from Microsoft to provide indemnity coverage to any potential copyright claims arising from using its AI CoPilot services, which integrate generative AI into Word...
...Investors were buoyed by the fact that Geico, the company’s auto insurance unit, posted a second consecutive quarterly profit after more than a year of losses....
...The carved-out company sold $3.8bn of stock at a price of $22 per share, giving it an initial equity valuation of $41bn....
...One of Berkshire’s crown jewels, the Geico auto insurer, swung to an underwriting profit after six consecutive quarters of losses....
...But this year, Abel — heir apparent to lead the $710bn conglomerate that includes the BNSF railroad, private jet operator NetJets and insurer Geico, as well as the other public and private groups Berkshire...
...“As a result, we currently expect Geico to generate an underwriting profit in 2023,” Berkshire said....
...J&J has agreed to indemnify the carved out business from any legal costs related to talc sales in the US and Canada, though Kenvue’s filing noted that it could not guarantee this indemnity would be sufficient...
...Moreover, it would be customary for the placement banks to have an indemnity from Adani in the remote event of an investor lawsuit on the prospectus disclosure....
...It is also the latest shift by the conglomerate, which spans the Geico insurer, BNSF railroad and Dairy Queen ice cream purveyor, into blue-chip technology companies....
...Berkshire’s insurance unit suffered an operating loss of $962mn during the quarter, with Geico warning that higher used auto parts prices and an increase in accidents were weighing on its results....
...The moves amount to the biggest sign yet of investor disquiet over governance at Buffett’s sprawling conglomerate, whose holdings include the insurer Geico, the BNSF railroad and electric utilities across...
...Insurance unit Geico recorded a $487mn pre-tax underwriting loss in the quarter, up from the three months before....
...Profits at its insurance businesses — which includes Geico — were nearly wiped out, falling to just $47mn from $764mn a year earlier....
...In his most recent letter to shareholders, Buffett again extolled the virtues of insurance “float” or the premiums that policyholders pay to Berkshire insurance companies such as Geico....
...Instead, Buffett directed Berkshire to pump much of the cash that the company’s various businesses — which span insurer Geico, BNSF Railway and the Dairy Queen ice cream chain — were generating in 2020 and...
...Among the insurance companies in Berkshire’s portfolio are Geico, one of the largest car insurers in the US, and reinsurer Gen Re, which provides cover to primary insurers across life, health, property and...
...Berkshire’s many operating companies, which include ice cream purveyor Dairy Queen, the Geico insurer, and private jets operator NetJets, nonetheless had a banner year....
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