Berkshire Hathaway

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the holding company controlled by billionaire Warren Buffett, agreed to buy Clayton Homes Inc., which makes manufactured homes, for about $1.7 billion. Berkshire Hathaway will pay $12.50 for each share of Clayton, 12% more than Clayton's closing price of $11.13 on the NYSE. Knoxville, Tenn.-based Clayton will become a unit of Berkshire Hathaway, with its management remaining in place.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will invest $125 million in a new Kemper Insurance Cos. unit that will underwrite commercial and professional liability coverage. Berkshire, which owns General Re Corp., the third-biggest reinsurer, and Geico Corp., the fourth-biggest U.S. car insurer, will get a 15% stake in the unit. Kemper will buy reinsurance, or insurance for insurance companies, from Berkshire. Shares of Berkshire rose $300 to $75,200 on the NYSE.

Billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Friday that first-quarter profit declined 64% as falling rates reduced returns from insurance operations. Net income decreased to $940 million, or $607 a share, from $2.6 billion, or $1,682, a year earlier, the Omaha-based company said. Operating earnings, which exclude investment losses, were $1,247 a share, lagging behind the $1,430 average estimate of three analysts compiled by Bloomberg.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said first-quarter earnings jumped 64%, buoyed by higher revenue from its Geico Corp. insurance unit. Its shareholder equity, which includes the value of Berkshire Hathaway's investments in other companies, grew 29% last year to $24.2 billion. Berkshire, a holding company controlled by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, said profit from operations climbed to $263.1 million, or $214 a share, from $160.2 million, or $134, a year earlier. In the most recent quarter, a $21.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported a third-quarter net loss of $679 million, or $445 a share, reflecting $2.28 billion in claims from the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. The Omaha, Neb.-based company, which owns General Re Corp., car insurer Geico Corp. and a range of other companies and investments, had posted net income of $797 million, or $523, in the year-earlier period.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the investment company headed by billionaire Warren Buffett, said in a suit that it mistakenly has been ordered to pay the Internal Revenue Service $16.3 million in taxes and interest. The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Omaha, said the IRS improperly classified $750 million the company borrowed in the late 1980s.

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s 75-year-old chief executive, said the company's board had selected an executive to eventually succeed him. The board chose from three internal candidates at the Omaha-based insurance and investment company, Buffett wrote in his annual letter released Saturday. He didn't identify them or discuss the timing of succession.

Warren Buffett continues to look to the building-materials business for bargains. Shares of USG Corp. (ticker symbol: USG) soared almost 30% on Monday after Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported holding a 14.98% stake in the biggest U.S. maker of wallboard. Chicago-based USG's shares jumped $4.44 to $19.38 after Berkshire disclosed its investment of 6.5 million shares in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

A former Berkshire Hathaway Inc. executive once considered a likely successor to Warren Buffett intentionally misled the investing guru about the stock he owned in a business that Berkshire later agreed to acquire, the company said. A report by the audit committee of Berkshire's board faults David Sokol for giving "misleadingly incomplete disclosures" about the timing and magnitude of his purchases of shares of Lubrizol Corp., which Berkshire agreed early this year to buy in a $9-billion deal.