[wayne]

Berkshire's history pre-Warren isn't that noteworthy:

Berkshire is known to be one of Warren Buffett's worst investments. The Berkshire textile company agreed to sell to Warren, but broke its word and raised its asking price at the 11th hour, which pissed Warren off, so he paid more than he should have to get control of the company to get back at them, even knowing that textiles were a declining industry given offshoring. Warren eventually had to shut everything down and lost a bunch of money. Warren calls it one of his biggest investment mistakes and kept the Berkshire name for his overall investment vehicle to remind himself about that blunder, so it's a little silly to think of the modern Berkshire as a continuation of the original Berkshire.

More: https://www.cnbc.com/2010/10/18/cnbc-transcript-warren-buffe...

Even more in the book "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life".

[Dork1234]

So was Berkshire invested in insurance before Buffet acquired them? Maybe he saw that the insurance side was worth more than the textiles would be. Acquire the company just for the insurance side, and wound down the textile side. Never letting anyone know his true intention was to go into insurance.