Insurance typically generates more than 20% of operating profit at Berkshire, which has dozens of businesses including BNSF Railway, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Dairy Queen ice cream and restaurant chain. Berkshire also invests hundreds of billions of dollars in stocks such as Apple Inc, and has this year invested more than $6.4 billion in Occidental Petroleum Corp. New York-based Alleghany was founded in 1929 by railroad entrepreneurs Oris and Mantis Van Sweringen and was transformed into an insurance and investment operating company under Fred Morgan Kirby II's leadership from 1967 to 1992. CFRA Research's Seifert said Alleghany has long held itself out as a "mini-Berkshire," being an insurance conglomerate that redeploys some of its excess capital in other businesses. Buffett said the companies had "many similarities," including what Brandon described in a letter to Alleghany's more than 13,000 employees as a "shared philosophy of managing businesses for the long term."