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The week's question
In December 2024, in the thread "Re: BRK: Why Not XOM?", BreckHutHigh asked the members: "What about the long road trips with kids?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
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Author: mungofitch 🐝🐝🐝 GOLD
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Number: of 21944 
Subject: Re: New post from Brooklyn investor
Date: 02/16/26 1:15 PM
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No. of Recommendations: 11
Has anyone calculated the compounded annual return for Berkshire from here under the following cannibal conditions?

It depends on the valuation level at which buybacks are done. If done on average at fair value, the value of a remaining share axiomatically doesn't change.

Speaking purely for illustration, if the firm is currently valued at book for cash and investments, but at X times earnings for the rest, the mix of those two would change but the total wouldn't.

So, to a first approximation, the trajectories of value and price would be unchanged in a cannibal scenario.

It depends a bit on the multiple you think the cash pile is being given by the market. Face value? A pinch more because Berkshire has always managed to find a profitable way to deploy it before too long? Or lower, because the average market participant expects some of it to be wasted? (paid out triggering high dividend tax, earn nothing for too many years before being allocated in an average way, dumb capital allocation by the new boss, whatever)

Overall I don't think it would make a big difference. Which leaves the question of what the owner earnings are now. Maybe just look at the median rolling year rise in book recently?

Biggest recent wildcard isn't the cash pile, but the big permanent hit to the true value of BHE. Unquantified but immense.

Jim
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This community has written 21,448 posts about Berkshire Hathaway. The article-length ones it recommended most:
BRK: Why Not XOM? · 62 recs · 2024
Second quarter comments · 60 recs · 2023
Berkshire's Profit Contributors · 57 recs · 2023
Summary of 2Q 2026 · 54 recs · 2026
3Q Summary · 53 recs · 2024
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