Berkshire posts worst performance ever

OMAHA, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. of Omaha, Neb., says 2008 was legendary investor Warren Buffet's worst year ever while eking out a fourth-quarter gain.

Using the book value per share metric, Berkshire's showing in 2008 was a 9.6 percent decline, the biggest such negative performance since Buffett took over the company in 1965, and only the second time in more than 40 years that Berkshire posted negative yearly results, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

In financial results released Saturday, Berkshire reported fourth-quarter net income of $117 million, marking a 96 percent decline from last year's $2.9 billion fourth-quarter income. The fourth-quarter numbers represented the fifth year-over-year quarterly decline in a row for Berkshire, the Journal said.

In a letter to shareholders, Buffett, Berkshire's chairman, said credit markets had turned "nonfunctional," noting that a "series of life-threatening problems within many of the world's great financial institutions (were) unveiled."

But, in urging optimism in a dark period, Buffett continued, "(N)ever forget that our country has faced far worse travails in the past … Without fail, however, we've overcome them."