Episode summary
Is this Company a 'Little Berkshire Hathaway'? Its CEO Weighs In. | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Tom Gayner
Summary
Markel Group is an insurance-based holding company that has evolved from specialty insurance into public equities and wholly owned businesses, and Tom Gayner says its model has long been shaped by studying Berkshire Hathaway. He argues that the point is not to replicate Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s results, but to emulate their methods: long-term ownership, disciplined capital allocation, and learning from people who are better at the craft than you are.
Gayner says Markel’s long-run stock performance has been uneven quarter to quarter but strong over decades, and he prefers “a lumpy 15” to a smooth lower return. He rejects narrow benchmark thinking, saying the company should “steer by the stars,” not by short-term market comparisons. He also frames insurance as a business with both complexity and underlying simplicity, using the idea of a bucket of money to explain pricing, claims, and investment portfolios.
He acknowledges that Markel has underperformed in parts of its insurance operation and says the company has exited weak product lines and changed senior leadership. Still, he says the business is diversified across insurance, investments, and Markel Ventures, with big holdings including Berkshire Hathaway, Google, John Deere, Amazon, Apple, and Caterpillar. Gayner’s goal remains building “one of the world's great companies,” and he says he plans to keep doing it as long as possible.
Key takeaways
- Tom Gayner says Markel has studied Berkshire Hathaway for years, but he views imitation as learning the process, not matching Buffett’s results.
- Gayner says Markel’s long-term return since 1986 is about 15% annually, and he prefers that lumpy outcome to a smoother, weaker one.
- He says Markel has had real underwriting problems, has exited unprofitable insurance lines, and has replaced some senior leaders.
- Gayner says the company’s largest investment is Berkshire Hathaway, with other major holdings in Google, John Deere, Amazon, Apple, and Caterpillar.
- He argues that insurance is complicated in practice but conceptually simple: premiums go into a bucket, claims come out, and pricing adjusts around that pool.
Notable quotes
“we've certainly studied the playbook and the example of of what Buffett built at Bergkshire for for many many years”
“We are building one of the world's great companies”
“the total premium volume of the insurance business I think would be roughly $8 billion or so”
“So so far so good. Uh none of those numbers were ever a specific target”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to At Barons. I'm Andy Sir and welcome to our guest Tom Gainer, CEO of Markell Group. Tom, great to see you. Thanks for joining us. — Andy, thanks so much for having me. Good to be here.
I know this is a question you often get, but please explain to us what Markell Group is exactly. Well, Markeel Group is an insurance-based holding company. Been around since 1930, so we're coming up on a hundred years.
Uh we started out in North Virginia insuring uh Jitney transportation devices and taxi cabs of of its day. Uh and and kept in sort of specialty forms of insurance for a long time. We've been uh investors in public equity securities for a very long time.
started about 20 years ago. We moved from uh buying publicly traded securities to buying wholly owned businesses. So we have a collection of insurance and investment and non-insurance businesses that comprise the Markell group.
All right. Well, a lot of people might say that sounds a little bit like Berkshire Hathway. You get that a lot that you're a little Berkshire Hathaway.
Is that the case, Tom? And how intentional is that? Well, we've certainly studied the playbook and the example of of what Buffett built at Bergkshire for for many many years.
uh in 1986 when Markel went public. I was actually an analyst who lucky enough was assigned to cover when Markel in the IPO process and I had been familiar through the uh work of Carol Lumis and Fortune magazine with Buffett uh from that time and I and I saw indeed a specialty insurance focused holding company business that was willing to invest money longer term and I said to myself right at that point that boy that's the formula by which uh Buffett built Bergkshire.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- holding company strategy
- value investing
- stock performance
- investment playbook
- ceo perspective
Companies and tickers mentioned
- MKL
- BRK-A
- BRK-B
- Markel Group
- Berkshire Hathaway
Watch the episode
Watch “Is this Company a 'Little Berkshire Hathaway'? Its CEO Weighs In. | At Barron's” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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