Forget AI Stocks: The New Berkshire Hathaway Nearly Tripled Its Stake in a 175-Year-Old Newspaper

Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.B) used its archetypal afloat 4th nether Greg Abel to astir triple its presumption successful New York Times (NYSE:NYT), adding astir 199% to the Class A involvement successful the aforesaid 4th it tripled Alphabet and started a Delta Air Lines position. For a steadfast that mostly sat retired media aft the Washington Post era, that signals a meaningful redirection of cash, and nary different large money manager carries the Times arsenic a condemnation buy.

What Abel really bought

The Times is an antithetic Berkshire holding. It is simply a $11.7 cardinal marketplace headdress steadfast with a 175-year history, a dual-class superior structure, and an expert people of $84.89 against a existent terms of $72.3. Mechanically, what Berkshire bought is simply a integer subscription concern wearing a paper costume. Digital-only subscriptions deed $389.04 cardinal successful Q1 2026, up 16.1% twelvemonth implicit year, connected 13.08 cardinal integer subscribers and ARPU of $9.77. Digital advertizing grew 31.6%, the benignant of acceleration usually reserved for AI darlings Abel was besides buying. The people diminution that bears support pointing astatine is present tiny capable to ignore: people advertizing fell 9.8% to $33.57 million, hardly a rounding enactment successful the model.

Inside that aforesaid Q1 filing, the valuation opposition is hard to miss. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) trades astatine astir 11 times income and a P/E of 28x connected $422 cardinal successful trailing revenue. Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) is the cyclical hedge, up 24% twelvemonth to date. The Times is the slow-grower of the three, and trades astatine astir 4 times sales, a level nary AI-era media sanction comes near.

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The thesis hiding successful the financials

Berkshire's playbook is paying for durable currency flow, and the Times present produces it. Full-year 2025 escaped currency travel grew 44.36% to $550.51 million. Moreover, its equilibrium expanse carries $1.1 cardinal successful currency and marketable securities with zero debt. This is the benignant of operation Abel grew up with astatine Berkshire Energy.

Plus, absorption raised the quarterly dividend 27.8% to $0.23 per stock and keeps repurchasing stock. It has $291.2 cardinal remaining nether authorization arsenic of May 1, 2026.