Berkshire Hathaway Profit Rises 51%

Results beat expectations, and were released after Berkshire shares earlier in the day closed at a record high. On Saturday, Warren E. Buffett, the company’s chairman, and Charlie Munger, the vice chairman, will field shareholder questions at the company’s annual meeting in its hometown, Omaha.

Net income increased to $4.89 billion, or $2,977 per Class A share, from $3.25 billion, or $1,966 a share, a year earlier. Operating profit increased 42 percent to $3.78 billion, or $2,302 a share, from $2.67 billion, or $1,615 a share.

Revenue rose 15 percent from a year ago to $43.87 billion.

Analysts on average expected profit of $1,996 a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Book value a share, Mr. Buffett’s preferred measure of growth, increased 5.5 percent from year end to $120,525 per Class A share, and Berkshire’s cash stake grew over that period to $49.09 billion from $46.99 billion.

About $12 billion of cash is being used to finance a purchase by Berkshire and Brazil’s 3G Capital of the ketchup maker H. J. Heinz.

Operating profit from insurance operations, including the Geico car insurance and General Re reinsurance businesses, doubled to $1.7 billion from $845 million.

Nearly all of the improvement came from underwriting, where profit rose to $901 million from $54 million, in part because of a $255 million pretax gain in its reinsurance business.

Operating profit from noninsurance business rose 12 percent to $2.25 billion from $2 billion.

Berkshire owns more than 80 business units that sell things like athletic apparel, chemicals, furniture and ice cream. It also owns tens of billions of dollars of common stocks like Coca-Cola, International Business Machines and Wells Fargo.

In trading on Friday, Berkshire Class A shares closed up $2,047, or 1.2 percent, at $162,904. Its Class B shares closed up $1.34, or 1.2 percent, at $108.64.

DealBook: Berkshire Hathaway to Acquire the Rest of IMC for $2 Billion

Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersWarren Buffett, left, with Eitan Wertheimer, the chairman of IMC, in 2011.

Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy the 20 percent of the IMC International Metalworking Companies that it does not already own for $2.05 billion, giving it full control of the company.

The deal was announced on Wednesday, just days before Berkshire holds its annual shareholder meeting, where Warren E. Buffett is expected to tell investors that he remains on the hunt for big deals.

It is the second big acquisition by Mr. Buffett’s company this year, following the blockbuster $23 billion takeover of H.J. Heinz by Berkshire and 3G Capital.

By buying the rest of IMC, an Israeli tool maker, from its founding Wertheimer family, Mr. Buffett is completing an acquisition that he began seven years ago. Berkshire’s initial purchase of an 80 percent stake for $5 billion was one of the largest takeovers of an Israeli company in that country’s history.

In a statement, Mr. Buffett attributed the 64 percent rise in IMC’s valuation over the seven years to the tool maker’s enormous growth.

“Since the time IMC entered our lives, my partner, Charlie Munger, and I have enjoyed Berkshire’s association with the company, the Wertheimer family, and the company’s management team,” Mr. Buffett said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing our stewardship of this unique company founded by the Wertheimer family in Israel 60 years ago and nurtured into a truly global enterprise.”

Berkshire was advised by its usual law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson. The Wertheimers were counseled by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.