The huge loss reflects the hit that the crisis has inflicted on Warren E. Buffett’s vast conglomerate.
Not even Warren E. Buffett was spared financially from the coronavirus, as his conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, reported a $49.7 billion loss in the first quarter on Saturday, reflecting the outbreak’s toll on an investment portfolio that includes big stakes in major airlines and financial firms.
The loss was Berkshire’s biggest ever and a sharp swing from a $21.7 billion profit in the same quarter a year ago. The conglomerate’s vast array of investments exposed it — and Mr. Buffett, long considered one of the world’s top investors — to huge swaths of the battered American economy.
Its total investment loss for the quarter was $54.5 billion. By comparison, its investment gain in all of 2019 was $56.3 billion.
Berkshire’s investment losses track the overall slide in stock markets: The S&P 500 dropped 20 percent in the first quarter. (The company’s biggest holdings are also mainstays of the S&P 500: American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola and Wells Fargo, with those stakes amounting to nearly $125 billion.
