(BRK.A), (BRK.B)
Berkshire Hathaway’s furniture retailing companies, which include Jordan’s, Nebraska Furniture Mart, R.C. Willey, and Star Furniture, delivered stellar results in 2015, with Berkshire’s revenues from retail rocketing up 64% to $564 million.
Much of the increase was due to the opening of the massive new Nebraska Furniture Mart in Dallas, Texas.
Proving that everything’s bigger in Texas, the mega-store boasts a 560,000-square-foot retail showroom and 58 acres of parking. The store’s massive loading area can load 120 cars simultaneously.
Before the new store opened, Berkshire was predicting that it would have annual revenues of $600 million, which is $200 million more than Nebraska Furniture Mart’s Kansas City store generates.
Shareholders Generate Spectacular Furniture Sales
Some of Berkshire’s millions in furniture sales come from the more than 40,000 shareholders that descend on Omaha every May for the conglomerate’s annual meeting.
In his 2015 annual letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett encouraged the shareholders to use their Berkshire Hathaway shareholder discount, which is good for the week of the annual meeting.
“Last year in the week encompassing the meeting, the store did a record $44,239,493 of business,” Buffett explained. “If you repeat that figure to a retailer, he is not going to believe you.”
Buffett went on to say that an average week for the store was roughly $9 million in sales, a figure that by itself would have any other furniture retailer in the stratosphere.
© 2016 David Mazor
Disclosure: David Mazor is a freelance writer focusing on Berkshire Hathaway. The author is long in Berkshire Hathaway, and this article is not a recommendation on whether to buy or sell the stock. The information contained in this article should not be construed as personalized or individualized investment advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.