Challenger Valuation Multiples

Berkshire Hathaway is a holding company with a wide array of subsidiaries engaged in diverse activities. The firm's core business segment is insurance, run primarily through Geico, Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, and Berkshire Hathaway Primary Group. Berkshire has used the excess cash thrown off from its operations to acquire Burlington Northern Santa Fe (railroad), Berkshire Hathaway Energy (utilities and energy distributors), and the companies that make up its manufacturing, service, and retailing operations (which include Precision Castparts, Lubrizol, Clayton Homes, Marmon, and IMC/ISCAR). The conglomerate is unique in that it is run on a completely decentralized basis. Berkshire is expected to generate close to $375 billion in revenue in 2025.

Morgan Stanley is a massive global financial services firm, with offices in 42 countries and more than 82,000 employees as of year-end 2025. The firm cut its teeth in investment banking and institutional trading, where it maintains a strong presence today, but generates the lion share of its income from wealth and asset management franchises, where it boasted $9.3 trillion in client assets at the end of its most recent fiscal year. After reincorporation as a bank holding company in the wake of the global financial crisis, Morgan Stanley also boasts a top 10 banking franchise by deposits, with more than $400 billion in customer deposits, predominately attributable to cash sweeps from its wealth management and brokerage businesses.

Goldman Sachs is a storied financial institution, founded in 1869 and best known for its role as a leading global investment bank. The firm has a sprawling reach across global financial centers and has been the leading provider of global merger and acquisition advisory services, by revenue, for the past 20 years. Since the global financial crisis, Goldman has expanded its offerings into more stable fee-based businesses like asset and wealth management, which comprised roughly 30% of post-provision revenue at the end of 2025. The bank holding company generates revenue from investment banking, global market making and trading, lending, asset management, wealth management, and a small and declining portfolio of consumer credit card loans.

Allianz was founded as a transport and accident insurance firm in 1890 by Carl von Thieme and Wilhelm von Finck, the founders of Munich Re. It took the company five years to expand the business into Europe and North America and subsequently list in Berlin. After World War I, individuals were confronted with the loss of wealth, life, and security and Allianz founded a life business in the 1920s. In the years after World War II, Allianz's foreign assets were seized, and it lost its foreign business. By relocating its head office from Berlin to Munich in 1948, Allianz began the long road of rebuilding its domestic business. It took 20 years for the company to reacquire its prior foreign interests, starting in Austria. It became the largest European insurer in the postwar boom era.

BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, with $14.041 trillion in assets under management at the end of December 2025. Its product mix is diverse, with 55% of managed assets in equity strategies, 23% in fixed income, 9% in multi-asset classes, 6% in money market funds, and 5% in alternatives. Passive strategies account for more than two-thirds of long-term AUM, with the company's ETF platform maintaining a leading market share domestically and on a global basis. Product distribution is weighted more toward institutional clients, which, by our calculations, account for around 80% of AUM. BlackRock is geographically diverse, with clients in more than 100 countries and more than one-third of managed assets coming from investors domiciled outside the US and Canada.

As the largest life insurance company in China, China Life commands about 16% market share by end-2024. The firm offers group and individual life insurance through exclusive agents, bancassurance, and other marketing platforms. While the bulk of profits stem from life insurance policies, additional operations include short-term policies such as accident and health insurance. The company is focusing on building a senior-care ecosystem and reforming a new agent team for long-term growth.

Ping An Insurance was founded in 1988 and headquartered in Shenzhen. As an integrated financial service provider, the company offers healthcare services and integrated financial products. Ping An is China's second-largest life and P&C insurer. The company strives for an integrated financial services platform comprising life insurance, P&C insurance, banking, and other financial services. These business segments contributed 58%, 11%, 32%, and negative 4% of the company’s pretax profits, respectively, in 2024.

ACE acquired Chubb in the first quarter of 2016 and assumed the Chubb name. The combination made the new Chubb one of the largest domestic property and casualty insurers, with operations in 54 countries spanning commercial and personal P&C insurance, reinsurance, and life insurance.

Progressive underwrites private and commercial auto insurance and specialty lines; it has almost 24 million personal auto policies in force and is one of the largest auto insurers in the United States. Progressive markets its policies through independent insurance agencies in the US and Canada and directly via the internet and telephone. Its premiums are split roughly equally between the agent and the direct channel. The company also offers commercial auto policies and entered homeowners insurance through an acquisition in 2015.

Zurich is a multiline insurer that writes business across both life and nonlife insurance and also owns Farmers Management Services. Zurich was founded in 1872 as a marine reinsurer to provide reinsurance to its parent company. The company subsequently expanded into transport and accident insurance and rode the wave of transport technology innovation that drove rising demand for insurance. One of Zurich’s early principles was that setting prices too low would result in unfair claims handling, which would be damaging to both customers and Zurich. Over the years, Zurich has sought to combine customer goodwill through claims and a sufficient premium. Zurich is one of the most successful European multilines.

AXA’s origins date back to Ancienne Mutuelle, which was one of the few insurers that remained after the creation of the French social security system. With the threat of nationalization, a merger took place between Drouot and AXA (still known as Mutuelles Unies in 1982) and later Présence. Ten years later, AXA acquired North American life insurer Equitable Holdings. This was a time of expansion as AXA also bought the French insurer UAP. As markets crashed at the turn of the millennium, AXA decided to refocus its business and exited its stake in US investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. A few years later the firm expanded again with the acquisition of Swiss insurer Winterthur. About five years ago, AXA started to reshape its portfolio to technical risks.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, AIA is one of the largest pan-Asian insurance providers with diversifed products offerings including retirement savings plans, life insurance, and accident and health insurance. It was previously part of American International Group and went for a separate listing in Hong Kong in 2010. The firm also provides employee benefits, credit life, and pension services to corporate clients. AIA operates in 18 markets and serves the holders of more than 30 million individual policies and over 16 million participating members of group insurance schemes.

Dating back to 1879, Tokio Marine is Japan’s oldest insurance company and was its top property and casualty insurer in terms of market share for many decades. After mergers of its smaller rivals in the past few years, the company is now roughly the same size in the domestic nonlife market as MS&AD and Sompo, but it remains the most valuable listed Japanese insurer in terms of market capitalization due to its larger overseas business portfolio. The majority of its overseas business is in the US, where it has purchased four specialty insurers since 2008: Philadelphia Consolidated, Delphi Financial, HCC, and PURE.

Blackstone is the world's largest alternative-asset manager with $1.242 trillion in total asset under management, including $906.2 billion in fee-earning assets under management, at the end of September 2025. The company operates with scale in each of its major product lines: private equity (26% of fee-earning AUM and 33% of base management fees), real estate/real assets (31% and 35%), private credit (34% and 25%), and other alternatives (9% and 7%). While the firm primarily serves institutional investors (84% of AUM), it also caters to clients in the high-net-worth channel (16%). Blackstone operates through 25 offices in the Americas (8), Europe and the Middle East (9), and the Asia-Pacific region (8).

Elevance Health remains one of the leading health insurers in the US, providing medical benefits to 46 million medical members as of June 2025. The company offers employer, individual, and government-sponsored coverage plans. Elevance differs from its peers in its unique position as the largest single provider of Blue Cross Blue Shield branded coverage, operating as the licensee for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association in 14 states. Through acquisitions, such as the Amerigroup deal in 2012 and MMM in 2021, Elevance's reach expands beyond those states through government-sponsored programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans, too. It is also an emerging player in pharmacy benefit management and other healthcare services.

KKR is a global investment firm headquartered in New York that manages private equity, credit, infrastructure and real estate investments and also offers capital markets services and insurance. It sponsors investment funds for institutional investors, private-wealth clients and families, commits capital from its own balance sheet alongside them, and owns Global Atlantic Financial Group, which provides retirement, life and reinsurance products; its Strategic Holdings segment holds long-term stakes from its core private equity strategy. KKR had $796 billion of assets under management, $638 billion of it fee-paying, at the end of June 2026, and raised $133 billion of new capital in the preceding twelve months. Its income comes from management and other fees, performance income on its funds and the earnings of its insurance business. The firm was founded in 1976 by Jerome Kohlberg, Henry Kravis and George Roberts, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is led by co-chief executives Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall. In the Nordic software market it bought 76.9% of Visma from HgCapital in 2010 at an enterprise value of about NOK 11.3 billion.

Brookfield Corp is an investment firm focused on building long-term wealth for institutions and individuals. It has seven operating segments: Asset Management, Wealth Solutions, Renewable Power and Transition, Infrastructure, Private Equity, Real Estate and Corporate Activities. It invests in real assets that form the backbone of the economy to deliver risk-adjusted returns to stakeholders. The company generates the majority of its revenue from Asset Management. It has a geographic presence in the UK, the United States, Australia, Canada, Brazil, India, Colombia, Germany, Other Europe, Other Asia, and other countries.

Travelers offers a broad product range and participates in both commercial and personal insurance lines. Its commercial operations offer a variety of coverage types for companies of any size but concentrate on serving midsize businesses. Its personal lines are roughly evenly split between auto and homeowners insurance.

The roots of Generali date back to the 1830s and the Bora wind and rough seas that hit the Trieste region. Over that decade, Generali sought to expand throughout Italy, but this growth was held back by the fragmented nature of Italy. The Italian Revolution in the 1840s paved the way for easier expansion in the country. After World War I, Trieste was handed back to Italy. The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire created a fragmented Europe and a fragmented Generali. To this day, Generali remains quite a diversified company, but its core operations remain in the historical Austro-Hungarian countries of Austria, Central and Eastern Europe, Germany, and Italy. This is the case in Generali’s nonlife business, and France is also an important contributor to life and savings.

Manulife Financial is one of the Big Three Canadian life insurers. The firm provides life insurance, annuities, asset management, and wealth management products to individuals and group customers in Canada, the United States, and Asia. The Canadian business segment contributes approximately 22% of adjusted earnings. The Asia segment operates across 12 countries and contributes around 36% of earnings, with a significant presence in Hong Kong and Singapore. The US business, which primarily operates under the John Hancock brand, contributes about 23% of earnings. Manulife’s global asset and wealth management business contributes approximately 20% of its earnings and had around CAD 1.03 trillion in assets under management and administration as of the end of 2024.

Munich Re was founded in 1880 by Carl Thieme amid a flurry of other reinsurance companies set up independently of primaries. In those early days, most reinsurers typically focused on a few strong customers. Thieme focused on a broader set of cedents to drive stronger growth in premiums. This coincided with a strategy of risk diversification and a preference to partner rather than take on a one-sided transfer of risk. In the 1890s, Munich Re introduced the first machinery insurance. After Thieme and Wilhelm von Fink founded Allianz, this was the main channel to sell insurance on machinery. We believe the approach of partnering with insurers and preferring to avoid one-sided risk, in conjunction with combining inspection and insurance services, remains at the heart of the firm.

Brookfield Asset Management is one of the world's largest alternative-asset managers, with USD 1.151 trillion in total managed assets, including USD 580.7 billion in fee-earning AUM, at the end of September 2025. The company has three main business segments: private credit (USD 349.0 billion in total AUM and USD 262.8 billion in fee-earning AUM), private equity (USD 151.0 billion/USD 46.3 billion), and real estate/real assets (USD 651.0 billion/USD 271.6 billion). The firm primarily serves institutional investors (90% of AUM) and high-net-worth individuals (10%), and is diversified globally, with 67% of revenue from the Americas, 20% from EMEA, and 13% from Asia-Pacific. Canadian-based Brookfield Corporation owns 73% of Brookfield's outstanding Class A shares.

Apollo is one of the world's largest alternative asset managers, with $908.4 billion in total assets under management, or AUM, including $685.0 billion in fee-earning assets, at the end of September 2025. The company has two core operating segments: asset management and retirement services. Apollo operates with scale in each of its major product lines-private equity (with $125.6 billion in total AUM and $71.7 billion in fee-earning AUM), real estate/real assets ($59.6 billion/$27.1 billion), and private credit ($723.2 billion/$586.2 billion). Apollo has a distribution profile that is likely not too far off from the industry averages-with 84% of its assets held by institutional investors and 16% by high-net-worth clients.

Cigna primarily provides pharmacy benefit management and health insurance services. Its PBM and specialty pharmacy services, which were greatly expanded by its 2018 merger with Express Scripts, are mostly sold to health insurance plans and employers. Its largest PBM contract is with the Department of Defense (current contract through 2029), and it recently won a multiyear deal with top-tier insurer Centene. In health insurance and other benefits, Cigna primarily serves employers through self-funding arrangements, and the company operates mostly in the US with 17 million US and 2 million international medical members covered as of December 2024.

Macquarie Group began trading in 1969 as Hill Samuel Australia, obtained its bank licence in 1985, and listed in 1996. It's Australia's only sizable listed investment bank, now internationally diversified, operating in asset management, banking and wealth, risk and capital solutions, and advisory.

Fubon Financial Holdings Co Ltd is a full-service financial holding company. Along with its subsidiaries, the company operates in the following reportable segments: Bank business, Insurance business, Life insurance business, Securities business, and Others. It generates maximum revenue from the Life Insurance business segment, which provides a variety of life and property insurance services. In addition to its reportable businesses, the group is also engaged in financial holding, venture capital, and asset management businesses. Geographically, it generates maximum revenue from Taiwan, followed by other Asian regions, and other markets.

Strategy Inc is a bitcoin treasury company and a provider of business intelligence services. It is designed to provide investors varying degrees of economic exposure to Bitcoin by offering a range of securities, including equity and fixed-income instruments. The company also provides industry AI-powered enterprise analytics software. It has one reportable operating segment: the Software Business, which is engaged in the design, development, marketing, and sales of the company's enterprise analytics software platform through cloud subscriptions and licensing arrangements and related services (i.e., product support, consulting, and education). Geographically, the company operates in EMEA, U.S. and Other Regions, of which maximum revenue is derived from U.S..

MetLife is one of the largest life insurers in the US by assets and provides a variety of life insurance and annuity products. It is organized into six segments: Group Benefits, Retirement and Income Solutions, Asia, Latin America, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA), and MetLife Holdings (products in run-off). Group Benefits and RIS are US-based, contributing to around 48% of the firm’s 2024 adjusted earnings. The Asia segment contributes around 25% of earnings, mainly tied to Japan. The company also holds leading market positions in Mexico and Chile, with the Latin America segment contributing around 13% of 2024 earnings. The EMEA and MetLife Holdings segments contributed around 4% and 10% of 2024 earnings, respectively.

Great-West Lifeco is one of the Big Three Canadian life insurers. The firm's Canadian business contributed around 30% of adjusted earnings. The firm generates a further 32% of adjusted earnings from the United States, attributable to its recordkeeping business, Empower, and its US life insurance business. Great-West Lifeco also offers various products across European markets with a strong presence in the UK and Ireland, which collectively accounted for 20% of adjusted earnings, while the firm's reinsurance business accounts for the remainder. Great-West Lifeco had around CAD 3.5 trillion of assets under administration across its business segments at the end of September 2025.

Allstate is one of the largest US property-casualty insurers in the US. Personal auto represents the largest percentage of revenue, but the company offers homeowners insurance and other insurance products. Allstate products are sold in North America primarily by about 6,000 exclusive agents.

Aflac Inc offers supplemental health insurance and life insurance in the United States and Japan. In addition to its cancer policies, the company has broadened its product offerings to include accident, dental and vision, disability, and long-term-care insurance. It markets its products through independent distributors, selling the majority of its policies directly to consumers at their places of work, and also reaches out to its customers outside of their worksite through digital mediums. The company has two reportable business segments; Aflac Japan which generates the majority of the revenue, and Aflac U.S.

Life Insurance Corporation of India is engaged in providing life insurance in India. The company offers diversified product portfolio covering various segments across individual products and group products.

Banco BTG Pactual S.A. is a Brazil-based banking firm. It offers financial products and services regarding commercial, investments, credit, financing, capital leases, insurance, and foreign exchange portfolios, among others, in the country and several locations abroad.

Cathay Financial Holding Co Ltd is a financial holding company. Along with its subsidiaries, it offers a broad range of life insurance, banking, and property and casualty insurance products to individual and corporate customers in Taiwan. The group has five reportable operating segments: Banking operating segment, Life insurance operating segment, Property insurance operating segment, Securities operating segment, and Other operating segment. A majority of its revenue is generated from the Life insurance segment, which is engaged in offering traditional insurance, investment-linked insurance, and interest-sensitive annuity insurance. In addition, this segment also provides financial planning services and policy loan services. Geographically, it derives key revenue from Taiwan.

State Street is a leading provider of financial services, including investment servicing, investment management, and investment research and trading. With approximately $54 trillion in assets under custody and administration, and $5.7 trillion in assets under management, as of Dec. 31, 2025, State Street operates globally in more than 100 geographic markets and employs about 51,500 worldwide.

PICC Group, headquartered in Beijing, is the largest state-owned insurance group in China. It holds a 69% stake in PICC Property and Casualty, an 80% stake in PICC Life, and a 69% stake in PICC Health Insurance. The P&C subsidiary is the largest nonlife insurer in the country, with approximately one-third of market share. The life insurance and health insurance subsidiaries hold about 2.9% and 1.3% of market share, respectively. The Ministry of Finance is the largest shareholder with a 61% stake, while China's Social Security Fund is the second-largest shareholder, holding nearly 13%.

PICC P&C is headquartered in Beijing. The company is the largest nonlife insurer in China, commanding nearly 33% market share in the country. It was founded by the People's Bank of China in 1949. The company is a flagship subsidiary of the PICC Group, a state-owned insurance group, which owns 69% of PICC P&C. The company offers a wide range of nonlife insurance products, including auto, commercial property, liability, credit and surety bond, accidents and health, energy and aerospace, and agricultural insurance.

Humana is one of the largest private health insurers in the US, and the firm has built a niche specializing in government-sponsored programs, with nearly all its medical membership stemming from Medicare, Medicaid, and the military's Tricare program. Beyond medical insurance, the company provides other healthcare services, including primary-care services, at-home services, and pharmacy benefit management.

MS&AD is Japan’s second-biggest nonlife insurer, trailing industry leader Tokio Marine in the scale of global operations although not in Japan. Like Tokio Marine and Sompo, MS&AD has grown into a second-tier presence in the domestic life insurance market since life and non-life insurance were mutually deregulated in 1996. Overseas, it is less focused on the US market than its two Japanese rivals and more focused on emerging Asia, but its acquisition of Lloyd’s syndicate Amlin in 2017 increased its exposure to the European and North American markets. MS&AD has historical business connections with the Mitsui and Sumitomo groups (the "MS" in the company name) and has a long-term partnership with Toyota Motor that is advantageous in acquiring auto insurance customers.

Sun Life Financial is one of the Big Three Canadian life insurers. The Canadian business contributed around 38% of adjusted earnings. In that segment, the firm provides health, life insurance, and annuity products to individual and group customers. Its US business is mostly group health and contributed about 20% of the firm's adjusted earnings in 2024. Sun Life also offers life insurance and wealth products in several Asian markets with a strong presence in Hong Kong and the Philippines. The Asia segment contributed around 18% of adjusted 2024 earnings. Its asset management business had around CAD 1.1 trillion total assets under management or administration at the end of 2024 and represents around 34% of the firm's earnings.

Ameriprise Financial has evolved into a diversified financial services provider that generates roughly 65% of its operating income from advice and wealth management. With nearly $1.2 trillion in segment assets under management and advisory at year-end 2025, and with roughly 10,600 affiliated and employee advisors, Ameriprise is one of the larger US-based wealth managers. It also boasts a reasonably large asset management franchise in Columbia Threadneedle, which boasted $678 billion in assets under management at year-end 2025. The firm's third key segment is its retirement and protection services business, which sells insurance products to the firm’s advisory clients. After eliminations, Ameriprise had $1.69 trillion in assets under management and advisory across segments at year-end 2025.

Dai-ichi Life is Japan's second-largest life insurer (excluding the recently privatized Japan Post Insurance), commanding 11% of annualized net premiums. Unlike its largest domestic rivals—Nippon Life, Meiji Yasuda, and Sumitomo Life—which remain mutually owned by policyholders, Dai-ichi Life demutualized and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2010. The group's profit profile is geographically diversified: its main domestic operating company contributes roughly 60% of profits; Frontier, its bancassurance subsidiary focused on savings products, adds around 10%; Protective Life (based in Alabama) accounts for about 15%; TAL in Australia contributes 7%; and Dai-ichi Life Vietnam generates about 5%. Additionally, the group holds a 30% economic interest in Mizuho's Asset Management One.

Established in 1988, China Pacific Insurance is China's third-largest life insurer and third-largest general property and casualty insurer, with headquarters in Beijing. The company strives to create an integrated financial services platform that encompasses insurance, banking, and asset management. CPIC's major shareholders are state-owned companies related to the Shanghai government.

Power Corp. of Canada is a holding company with controlling interests in Great-West Lifeco (one of the big three Canadian life insurers), IGM Financial (Canada's largest nonbank asset manager), and other alternative asset management platforms (Sagard and Power Sustainable). The company also has minority interests in Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, a holding company with interests in European firms.

Prudential Financial is one of the largest US life insurers, offering annuities, life insurance, and asset-management products. The United States and Japan are its two largest markets. Its US business contributed about 50% of adjusted 2024 earnings and includes institutional retirement (mostly pension risk transfer), individual retirement (annuities), group insurance, and individual life insurance. Its international business represented about 40% of adjusted earnings, with a strong market position in Japan, and the firm also has a presence in emerging markets like Brazil. The company's investment management business, PGIM, contributed approximately 10% of its 2024 adjusted earnings. PGIM had around $1.4 trillion in assets under management at the end of third-quarter 2025.

ORIX Corp is a diversified financial services company with operations in Corporate Financial Services, Maintenance Leasing, Real Estate, PE Investment and Concession, Environment and Energy, Insurance, Banking and Credit, Aircraft and Ships, ORIX USA, ORIX Europe, Asia, and Australia and engages in various other fee businesses by providing products and services aligned with customer needs to its core customer base of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises. Orix's numerous divisions finance leases of large-ticket items like ships, airplanes, and technology equipment. The company generates the majority of its revenue from Corporate Financial Services and Maintenance Leasing operations and Real Estate operations.

American International Group is one of the largest insurance and financial services firms in the world and has a global footprint. It operates through a wide range of subsidiaries that provide property, casualty, and life insurance. The company recently spun off its life insurance operations (Corebridge), but still retains a minority stake.

Samsung Life Insurance Co Ltd is engaged in the life insurance business. It provides a broad mix of insurance, savings and financial services. Its offerings include life, health and pension insurance, along with property-related coverage. It also extends credit and mortgage loans, retirement products, trust services and investment management solutions. These services support customers in protecting their finances and planning for long-term growth across life, health, assets and retirement needs.