Calculating Earnings per Share for Berkshire Hathaway

Question

I am looking at page 5 of the following earnings release: Form 10-Q (Q2 2021)

I want to calculate the earnings per B-Share. I do this with the following calculations:

 28094e6  / ( 1519576*1500 + 2279363382 )

The numerator is the total earnings, the two numbers in the dividend represent the number of class A and class B shares outstanding. You will notice that one of the numbers is multiplied by 1500. This is because 1 class A share is the equivalent of 1500 B shares.

When I do the calculations, I get earnings per share of 6.1626848. However, the report shows earnings of 12.33. What am I missing?

Answer 1

The simple answer is you double counted.

The table in the Form 10-Q (Q2 2021) you pulled the numbers from includes the following:

Class B shares are economically equivalent to one-fifteen-hundredth of a Class A share. Accordingly, net earnings per average equivalent Class B share outstanding is equal to one-fifteen-hundredth of the equivalent Class A amount. See Note 17. See accompanying Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements

The key is note 17

Since we have two classes of common stock, we provide earnings per share data on the Consolidated Statements of Earnings for average equivalent Class A shares outstanding and average equivalent Class B shares outstanding. Class B shares are economically equivalent to one-fifteen-hundredth (1/1,500) of a Class A share. Average equivalent Class A shares outstanding represents average Class A shares outstanding plus one-fifteen-hundredth (1/1,500) of the average Class B shares outstanding. Average equivalent Class B shares outstanding represents average Class B shares outstanding plus 1,500 times the average Class A shares outstanding.

That essentially means they already did the math you did. When you repeated the calculation you ended-up double counting the shares.