Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters

Practicing investing

[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

In general, I believe that directors have stiffened their spines recently and that shareholders are now being treated somewhat more like true owners than was the case not long ago.

- 1993 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

We do not talk one-on-one to large institutional investors or analysts, but rather treat all shareholders the same.

- 2013 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Yet at yearend, our delinquency rate on loans we have originated was 3.6%, up only modestly from 2.9% in 2006 and 2.9% in 2004.

- 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

We also believe candor benefits us as managers: the CEO who misleads others in public may eventually mislead himself in private.

- 1983 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Clearly, Berkshire’s results would have been far better if I had caught this swing of the pendulum. That may seem easy to do when one looks through an always-clean, rear-view mirror.

- 2004 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Regardless of how our businesses might be doing, Charlie and I could – quite legally – cause net income in any given period to be almost any number we would like.

- 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

In 38 years, we’ve never had a single CEO of a subsidiary elect to leave Berkshire to work elsewhere.

- 2002 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

If premiums exceed the total of expenses and eventual losses, we register an underwriting profit that adds to the investment income produced from the float.

- 2009 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

During 1997, both parts of our business grew at a satisfactory rate, with investments increasing by $9,543 per share, or 33.5%, and operating earnings growing by $296.43 per share, or 70.3%.

- 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

You are lucky if you get one that is pleasant for every ten that go the other way. Too often, however, insurers react to looming loss problems with optimism.

- 2005 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Indeed, who has ever benefited during the past 238 years by betting against America?

- 2014 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Only when bond purchases appear decidedly superior to other business opportunities will we engage in them. Those occasions are likely to be few and far between.

- 1984 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Good profits will be realized only when there is a shortage of capacity. Shortages will occur only when insurers are frightened. That happens rarely - and most assuredly is not happening now.

- 1989 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Last summer, Lou Simpson told me he wished to retire. Since Lou was a mere 74 – an age Charlie and I regard as appropriate only for trainees at Berkshire – his call was a surprise.

- 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

We will not take cash compensation, restricted stock or option grants that would make our results superior to yours.

- 2001 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Beware of “dividends” that can be paid out only if someone promises to replace the capital distributed.

- 1981 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

It’s better to have a partial interest in the Hope Diamond than to own all of a rhinestone.

- 2014 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Charlie and I have never sold a security because of the effect a sale would have on the net income we were soon to report.

- 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

Investors should understand that in all types of financial institutions, rapid growth sometimes masks major underlying problems (and occasionally fraud).

- 2004 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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[Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters @BHLetters]

One question I always ask myself in appraising a business is how I would like, assuming I had ample capital and skilled personnel, to compete with it.

- 1983 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

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