How Does BRK.B's SG&A Expense Management Impact Its Profits?

Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B is one of the most resilient and strategically advantaged conglomerates, offering investors a uniquely diversified mix of stable earnings, durable competitive moats, conservative financial discipline and long-term value compounding. Its highly decentralized structure allows subsidiaries to operate independently, promoting agility while managing overhead costs prudently. This approach helps maintain proportionally lean selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses relative to Berkshire’s scale, supporting healthy operating margins and enabling more capital to be directed toward value-enhancing investments.

Berkshire owns a collection of high-quality, cash-generating businesses in manufacturing, service and retail. All operating costs that are not directly tied to producing a product or service of these units together contribute to SG&A. BRK.B’s SG&A expense has been increasing every year. It rose 31% over the last two years. However, as a percentage of top line (about 6-7%) as well as total costs and expenses (7-8%), it has remained stable over the last few years. 

Not to forget, Berkshire’s insurance segment is the backbone of its operational model, generating meaningful underwriting profits and substantial float that Warren Buffett has long leveraged for investments. It is complemented by the railroad, utilities and energy operations. SG&A expense is not a cost component of insurance, railroad, utilities and energy operations.

SG&A is a lever that can affect the profitability of manufacturing, service and retail operations, but its impact on Berkshire’s consolidated operations and profitability is not felt much.

What About BRK.B’s Peers?

Though a conglomerate, BRK.B is one of the largest property and casualty (P&C) insurers globally. Its peers — major P&C insurers — incur underwriting expenses to carry on operations smoothly.

As a leading auto insurer, Progressive Corporation PGR incurs high underwriting expenses. When Progressive effectively controls these costs, it drives underwriting gains, maintains competitive pricing and secures sustainable long-term growth.

The same holds true for Allstate Corporation ALL. As a top personal lines insurer, Allstate strives to control underwriting expenses to sustain profitability. When Allstate manages these effectively, it strengthens underwriting margins, ensures earnings stability and secures long-term value creation for shareholders.

BRK.B’s Price Performance

Shares of BRK.B have gained 12.9% year to date, outperforming the industry.

BRK.B’s Expensive Valuation

BRK.B trades at a price-to-book value ratio of 1.58, above the industry average of 1.54. It carries a Value Score of D.

Estimate Movement for BRK.B

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for BRK.B’s fourth-quarter 2025 EPS has moved 15.8% south over the past seven days, while that for first-quarter 2026 EPS has moved 12.3% north in the same period. The consensus estimate for full-year 2025 and 2026 EPS has witnessed no movement over the past seven days.
 

The consensus estimate for BRK.B’s 2025 and 2026 revenues indicates year-over-year increases, while the same for 2025 and 2026 EPS indicates a year-over-year decline.  

BRK.B stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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