Warren Buffett stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) in 2025, passing the reins to longtime successor Greg Abel. Aditya Jain now oversees the stock-picking operation.
Together, they carry on the legacy of two of the best investors ever to live. Charlie Munger, Buffett’s closest partner and right-hand man for decades, passed away in 2023 but the investing blueprint they built lives on.
Berkshire Hathaway may technically be a listed holding company, but it’s more accurate to think of it as a publicly traded investment fund. For over half a century, it has quietly compounded shareholder wealth in a tax-efficient, disciplined, and methodical way.
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What Is Berkshire Hathaway?
Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company that fully owns dozens of private businesses across different industries. These include everything from insurance and railroads to housing materials and consumer products. These subsidiaries operate independently and generate steady cash flow, which Berkshire reinvests.
Beyond its privately held businesses, Berkshire also manages a massive public equity portfolio. The holdings span blue-chip companies across U.S. financials, energy, and consumer staples. The portfolio is long-term focused and value-driven, with many positions held for decades and opportunistically added to and trimmed.
Then there’s the cash pile of over $350 billion in short-term U.S. Treasury bills and equivalents. That cash gives Berkshire unmatched flexibility. It can acquire companies outright, pounce on opportunities during market selloffs, or keep earning safe 4.25% interest while waiting for better prices.
A few quirks make Berkshire even more tax-efficient than most blue-chip stocks. For one, it does not pay a dividend. All earnings are reinvested. That means investors aren’t taxed yearly on income they didn’t ask for. It’s the ultimate defer-and-compound machine.
And the long-term results speak for themselves. From March 17, 1980 to July 9, 2025, the S&P 500 returned 12.3% annually, turning a $10,000 investment into about $1.9 million. Over that same period, Berkshire compounded at 18.8% annually, turning the same $10,000 into an astonishing $24.8 million.
How to invest in Berkshire Hathaway
You can buy Class B shares on the NYSE. These trade in the low hundreds of dollars and offer a practical way to invest, since Class A shares now cost several hundred thousand apiece. However, buying BRK.B means converting your Canadian dollars into U.S. dollars, which can be pricey depending on your broker.
A cheaper, simpler alternative is the Berkshire Hathaway CDR (TSX: BRK), which trades in Canadian dollars. CDRs (Canadian Depositary Receipts) are fractional, hedged versions of U.S. stocks tailored for Canadian investors. They’re designed to mirror the performance of the underlying U.S. shares but in your own currency, with no need for FX conversions.
The only drag is a 0.5% fee baked in for currency hedging. But since Berkshire doesn’t pay dividends, you also don’t face the typical 15% foreign withholding tax that comes with most U.S. stocks. For Canadians, the BRK CDR is one of the cleanest and most cost-effective ways to own a piece of Buffett’s empire.
