In December 2019, an amendment to the Plan was adopted providing that no new GEICO employees
shall become participants in the Plan for Plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2019 (the freeze) and no GEICO contributions shall be made under the Plan with respect to services performed and compensation earned by the GEICO
employees, that were formerly eligible to be Participants, for Plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2019. Therefore, there will be no further allocations to GEICO employees as they are no longer participants.
Effective as of June 1, 2020, the Plan was amended and restated to:
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1) |
discontinue the GEICO participation in the ESOP portion of the Plan so that the GEICO Companies were no
longer participating employers in the Plan and to transfer assets under the ESOP attributable to employees of GEICO to the trust under the Revised Profit-Sharing Plan for the Employees of the Government Employees Companies (the GEICO
plan), and, |
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2) |
rename the Plan the Employee Savings and Stock Ownership Plan of General Re Corporation and its Domestic
Subsidiaries. |
Effective June 1, 2020, the plan transferred assets of $331,211,204 to the GEICO plan, which
represented participant account balances and forfeitures accumulated at that time related to former GEICO participants. The transferred assets included 1,545,644 shares of Berkshire Common Stock.
During 2022, the entirety of the remaining unallocated Berkshire Common Stock was utilized by the Plan. In addition, the Plan settled the
remaining principal and interest balance on the Loan. The final unallocated shares were used to provide for the October 14, 2022 Gen Re contribution (refer to the Contributions section below) and were supplemented by an additional 924
shares of Berkshire Common Stock valued at $246,764 to satisfy the match requirement for that period. These additional shares were purchased on the open market by Gen Re and contributed to the Plan and allocated to participants. Contributions to
participants were made in cash beginning with the October 31, 2022 payroll period and matching contributions will continue to be made in cash going forward.
Gen Re made a final cash contribution to the Plan in 2022 necessary to repay the Loan which allows for the allocation of Berkshire Common Stock
to Plan participants. The Loan was guaranteed by the Plan sponsor. The Plans investment in the Berkshire B ESOP Fund consists solely of Berkshire Common Stock shares.
Gen Re has no rights against shares of Berkshire Common Stock once the shares are allocated to participants. During the year ended
December 31, 2022, Gen Re contributed $52,824 to support the Plans debt service. The debt service included $2,628 of interest expense. The Loan balance was $0 and $50,196 at December 31, 2022 and 2021 respectively.
The Plan allocated 21,193 unallocated shares of Berkshire Common Stock to participants in 2022. Also in 2022, the Plan used 656 shares for
fees, 94,800 shares were sold and retired from the Plan, and 1,174 shares were used from the forfeiture account toward Gen Re employer contributions. The ESOP account had a 3,306 share decrease in the supplemental share account due to benefit and
loan activity. The Plan held 1,562,513 allocated shares and no unallocated shares of Berkshire Common Stock as of December 31, 2022. The Plan held 1,637,470 allocated shares and 21,849 unallocated shares as of December 31, 2021. As of
December 31, 2022, the Plan also held 224,081 shares of Berkshire Common Stock via the Berkshire B Unitized Fund.
Contributions
- The Plan allows Gen Re participants to make after-tax contributions as well as tax-deferred contributions to the Plan as permitted under IRC
Section 401(k). Such participants may contribute up to 16% of their annual base salary, subject to IRC limitations for 401(k) contributions, which, for tax-deferred contributions, was $20,500 for 2022.
Gen Re participants who have attained age 50 before the end of the Plan year were eligible to make Catch-Up contributions up to $6,500 for 2022. Gen Re participant contributions
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