No. of Recommendations: 3
" Berkley shares, now about $68, went public at a split-adjusted price of about a nickel and generated an annualized total return since then of about 18%—compared with 11% for the S&P 500, according to calculations from Dowling & Partners.
Berkshire has produced a roughly 20% annualized return since the 95-year-old Buffett took control of the company in 1965.
Berkley got the wherewithal to start his insurance business in 1967 from profits from Berkley Dean, an investment firm that he formed during his days as a student at Harvard Business School. He managed the firm from his apartment on campus.
For a time, Berkley worked at Fidelity Management and Research, and got to know its leader, Ned Johnson, who paid Berkley $25,000 in consulting fees to help get the new insurer off the ground.
Berkley became interested in investing as a boy growing up in New Jersey and made his first purchase, Decca Records stock, because friends were buying the label’s records to listen to the likes of the Rolling Stones, Patsy Cline, and Tom Jones.
W.R. Berkley now has a market value of $25 billion and has generated consistently strong underwriting results and returns using a decentralized strategy involving about 60 individual insurers under its umbrella."
https://www.barrons.com/articles/chubb-evan-greenb... 