Skip to Content

US Videos

This Insurer Is No 'Mini-Berkshire'

Markel has developed a strong reputation as a mini-Berkshire, but the resulting premium on its share price is unwarranted.

This Insurer Is No 'Mini-Berkshire'

Brett Horn, CFA

Apr 16, 2016

Brett Horn: A number of insurers have drawn comparisons to Berkshire Hathaway over the years. In our view, Markel has developed the strongest reputation as a mini-Berkshire. The shares currently trade at a substantial premium as a result, currently trading at about 2.1 times tangible book. We think this comparison is inaccurate and the premium is unwarranted.

We grant that Tom Gayner has proven himself to be a very good stock-picker, but we estimate that even if he maintains his outperformance going forward, this would add only about 1% annual book-value growth, which suggests that at best investors should pay a modest premium.

Further, we find the company's non-insurance M&A track record to be unimpressive, and we have concerns that its 2013 acquisition of reinsurer Alterra could prove ill-timed given recent negative trends in the reinsurance space.

We would suggest for investors looking at an alternative to consider WR Berkley. It's the closest comp to Markel operationally, and it trades at a much more modest premium of 1.5 times tangible book, which we believe leaves it roughly fairly valued.

Transparency is our policy. Learn how it impacts everything we do

Transparency is how we protect the integrity of our work and keep empowering investors to achieve their goals and dreams. And we have unwavering standards for how we keep that integrity intact, from our research and data to our policies on content and your personal data.

We’d like to share more about how we work and what drives our day-to-day business.

How we make money

We sell different types of products and services to both investment professionals and individual investors. These products and services are usually sold through license agreements or subscriptions. Our investment management business generates asset-based fees, which are calculated as a percentage of assets under management. We also sell both admissions and sponsorship packages for our investment conferences and advertising on our websites and newsletters.

How we use your personal data

How we use your information depends on the product and service that you use and your relationship with us. We may use it to:

Verify your identity, personalize the content you receive, or create and administer your account.
Provide specific products and services to you, such as portfolio management or data aggregation.
Develop and improve features of our offerings.
Gear advertisements and other marketing efforts towards your interests.

To learn more about how we handle and protect your data, visit our privacy center.

How we approach editorial content

Maintaining independence and editorial freedom is essential to our mission of empowering investor success. We provide a platform for our authors to report on investments fairly, accurately, and from the investor’s point of view. We also respect individual opinions––they represent the unvarnished thinking of our people and exacting analysis of our research processes. Our authors can publish views that we may or may not agree with, but they show their work, distinguish facts from opinions, and make sure their analysis is clear and in no way misleading or deceptive.

To further protect the integrity of our editorial content, we keep a strict separation between our sales teams and authors to remove any pressure or influence on our analyses and research.

Read our editorial policy to learn more about our process.