US · Educational sample
Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B)
A holding company that still compounds capital with rare discipline and a fortress balance sheet.
Business
Berkshire is an insurance float machine paired with wholly owned operating businesses and a public equity portfolio. Float is capital others pay you to hold; operating subsidiaries throw off cash that can be redeployed without Wall Street permission. The culture optimizes for permanent capital, not quarterly optics.
Moat
Trust, underwriting culture, and a reputation for not overpaying create deal flow money alone cannot buy. Decentralized managers run businesses as owners. The moat is institutional: capital allocation skill compounded over decades.
Valuation
Often trades near a fair band of book value and look-through earnings — neither a bargain nor a bubble most years. The opportunity appears when fear discounts the cash pile and the operating engines together. Paying a modest premium for capital allocation skill has historically been rational.
Price bands
Buy zone near or below a conservative look-through earnings multiple with cash as ballast. Wait only if the premium to book stretches far beyond historical norms without a matching opportunity set.
What to ask
Buy a collection of durable cash engines and insurance float when the market prices them as a sleepy conglomerate.
Risk
Succession, a mountain of cash that earns little if deals stay scarce, and insurance underwriting cycles remain the core risks. A large equity book also imports market beta the culture cannot fully eliminate.
Educational research only. Not investment advice. Sample memos are static illustrations of the ValueDesk lens — run a live memo on any ticker in the desk.