You certainly know that Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB) owns a bunch of individual stocks. You may have even borrowed a few of these picks for your own portfolio. What's often easy to forget, however, is that Berkshire is also a conglomerate of several dozen wholly owned enterprises.
Unlike the publicly traded stocks that the conglomerate owns, these privately run enterprises' results are collectively reflected on the organization's income statement, just as they would be for any individual company. Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005.
But according to our analysts, we're only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue » There's more of it than you might expect of the $1.1 trillion conglomerate, too.
Indeed, Berkshire Hathaway's operating earnings alone could easily top $48 billion this fiscal year. It's not that you hear nothing about it. It's just that all the buying and selling of stocks that Berkshire does in any given quarter is given considerably more attention.
It's there if you're willing to do a little digging, though. Take last quarter's official investor update, for instance. During the three months ending in June, the company's privately owned businesses -- like GEICO insurance, Fruit of the Loom, Clayton Homes, and railroad BNSF -- collectively generated $12.98 billion in liquid, accessible operating earnings, bringing the year-to-date total to $24.33 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway simply needs to do what it did during the first half of 2026 again in the second half to reach -- and eclipse -- the $48 billion mark. It very likely will, given the nature of these wholly owned companies like Pilot travel centers, Shaw flooring, and the aforementioned Fruit of the Loom. None of these are particularly high-growth enterprises.
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