Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stock price exceeds $200,000 per share

Shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway surpassed $200,000 last week, a record high level for the price of one share.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has been one of the best-known names in the business world for many years, but the company truly made history last week.

Class A shares in the firm hit and eye-watering $202,850 each, topping the $200,000 mark for the first time and adding a spectacular $667 million to the investment tycoon’s fortune. This means that Mr Buffett, who is the third richest man in the world, is now worth nearly $66 billion, according to Forbes.

This means that the Berkshire Hathaway’s stock has risen by as much as 104 per cent in less than eight years, since it first crossed the $100,000 mark in October 2006.

In comparison, the price and total return of the S&P 500 have risen by 43 and 69 per cent respectively.

Plenty of risks have been taken along the way and Mr Buffett’s career has been eventful to say the least. In the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, he invested in Goldman Sachs Group and General Electric, both of which led to huge profits. And he did it again with Bank of America a couple of years later after he bet $5 billion on the institution while it was struggling.

Mr Buffett is nearly 84 years old and still oversees the company, owning around a fifth of Berkshire Hathaway himself.

He has been donating shares in the company to several charities since 2006, which has earned the businessman a reputation as a philanthropist.

Berkshire Hathaway was a failing textile business when he originally came in, but since then has diversified to own brands as diverse as Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom and Helzberg Diamonds. Add in sizeable minority stakes in Heinz, American Express, Coca-Cola and IBM, and it’s easy to see how it became one of the biggest firms in the world.

And it may not even stop here – Reuters reports that since it was trading at around 1.4 times its book value in the last quarter, on some measures it’s only “moderately priced”.