Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B) maintains a 9.32% stake in Coca-Cola. The holding company itself pays no dividend, preferring to reinvest earnings and buy back stock, yet generates significant dividend income across its equity portfolio.
How Much Buffett Is Collecting From Coca-Cola
Berkshire Hathaway owns approximately 400 million shares of Coca-Cola. With Coca-Cola paying an annual dividend of $2.04 per share, that stake generates roughly:
400,000,000 shares × $2.04 = $816 million per year
That breaks down to about $204 million every quarter flowing from Coca-Cola to Berkshire.
For a single stock position, that level of income is extraordinary. Coca-Cola has effectively become a steady cash-producing asset inside Berkshire’s portfolio, sending more than three-quarters of a billion dollars annually to the conglomerate without requiring Buffett to sell a single share.
The Power of Yield on Cost
Buffett’s long-term investment approach with Coca-Cola demonstrates the compounding power of dividend growth over decades. The stock’s market value has multiplied many times over, while the dividend growth illustrates the compounding machine Buffett built through patient capital allocation.
Coca-Cola has raised its dividend for 63 consecutive years, earning Dividend King status. The most recent increase came in 2025, when the quarterly payout rose 5.2% from $0.485 to $0.51 per share. Over the past five years, the dividend has climbed from $1.60 in 2019 to $2.04 in 2025 – a 27.5% cumulative increase.
The SNOWBALL pays no dividend, preferring to reinvest earnings and buy back stock, yet generates significant dividend income across its equity portfolio.
If you think that you know better than W.B. and Benjamin Graham. GL
Whilst a profit is not a profit until it sits in your account the same proviso is for dividends but the current income, using the calendar above, is £12,731.00.
The new figure doesn’t change the previous published fcast or target but anyone lucky enough to have ten years of re-investing could, with a fair wind, have income of 25% on seed capital.
Remember also if your investing journey is only just starting out, with compound interest, the good news is, you stand to make more in the last few years of re-investing than in all the early years.
This is not substantive investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. This material should be considered as general market commentary.
Benjamin Franklin famously observed, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” Death may remain non-negotiable but thankfully tax leaves more room for manoeuvre – and with the UK’s tax burden at a 70-year high, there’s plenty to be said for making full use of every (legal) tax shelter available.
Step forward the ISA, with more than 22 million Brits squirrelling away their hard-earned money inside one. The average ISA is worth around £34,000, with over 5,000 people crossing the million-pound mark and, at the very top of the food chain, a quietly (or loudly) smug cohort are sitting on £10-million-plus pots.
Getting from £34,000 to £10 million may feel harder than calculating the stamp duty correctly on your second home but we’re here to help (our readers that is, not the former Secretary of State for Housing). We’ve quizzed colleagues on how they invest their own ISAs, and rounded things off with our guide to the best ISA providers in the UK.
Ryan Lightfoot-Aminoff Ι Associate Director, Kepler Trust Intelligence
Having recently emptied the coffers for a family house, I’ve embarked on a new investing strategy which can broadly be divided into two categories: long term buy-and-holds and short-term ‘mispriced’ opportunities.
Whilst the sensible theory says I should tilt towards the former, the release of pressure of “only” needing to pay a 30-year mortgage (rather than also fund a growing deposit) has meant I’ve tilted towards the latter of these approaches recently.
This has led me to a couple of investment trusts I think look good value at this point. Firstly, there is Montanaro UK Smaller Companies (MTU), which has struggled with the dual headwinds of being in a challenging sector of smaller UK equities, with manager Charles Montanaro’s investment style also being out-of-favour. However, looking at the long-term success of both manager and the asset class, I am confident things will turn around, leading to a strong rally.
Similarly, I have pounced on the depressed share price of Greencoat UK Wind (UKW). A mixture of low wind generation, tweaks to regulations and concerns over asset values means the trust’s share price is now below the IPO level. As such, it now pays an income of over 10% per annum, which I believe is well supported by revenues and can lead to good total returns over the medium-term.
Ryan Lightfoot-Aminoff
Ryan joined Kepler in August 2022 as an investment trust research analyst. Prior to this, he spent seven years as a senior research analyst at Chelsea Financial Services where he worked on fund selection for their retail clients and on their multi-asset fund range. He holds an MSc in Finance & BA in Accounting & Finance from the University of the West of England.
David Brenchley Ι Investment specialist, Kepler Trust Intelligence
With stock markets trading at or close to all-time highs, there aren’t many places that a mild contrarian would be comfortable putting new money, but there are some areas of opportunity.
The quality style of investing is underperforming to an extent not seen for a long time, so I’m topping up two of my three quality-biased global equity funds. IFSL Evenlode Global Equity and Rathbone Global Opportunities are down 12% and 4% respectively over one year, despite having attractive enough portfolios to suggest performance will turn around soon. Top holdings include the likes of Alphabet, Microsoft, Costco and Mastercard.
India is another stock market that has underperformed both global and emerging market peers, yet the long-term investment case for the country appears undimmed. My view is that valuations became very stretched after an impressive run of performance and are now being corrected, providing a potential buying opportunity. I was early to Ashoka India Equity (AIE), but remain happy to buy the ongoing dip.
Contributions into my stocks and shares ISA have been on pause while I buy my first house, but I’ve elected to get my money back from Smithson (SSON), which is being rolled over into an open-ended fund in March. The proceeds will go into regional smaller company funds including Nippon Active Value (NAVF), AVI Japan Opportunity (AJOT), European Smaller Companies Trust (ESCT) and SPDR MSCI USA Small Cap Value Weighted UCITS ETF (USSC).
I’m considering taking profits on Temple Bar (TMPL), where gains are around 70% since investing and recycling them into Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT), another quality-style strategy that has performed poorly despite having a portfolio of great companies like Rightmove, London Stock Exchange Group and Experian.
David Brenchley
David is an investment specialist for Kepler Trust Intelligence and joined Kepler Partners in June 2024. Before joining, he worked as money reporter for The Times and The Sunday Times where he wrote about all facets of investment for retail investors. He has previously worked for Money Observer magazine, Interactive Investor, Morningstar and Investment Week. He graduated from the University of Huddersfield with a degree in Media and Sports Journalism.
Alan Ray Ι Investment trust analyst, Kepler Trust Intelligence
I think any investment trust enthusiast could find a home for the Unicorn Mastertrust fund. Since 2002, its diversified portfolio of investment trusts has generated top quartile returns. The emphasis is on traditional equity strategies, and areas such as small companies or private equity that make best use of the investment trust structure.
Don’t think of it as a deep discount value fund, but as a slice of what’s best about investment trusts, and it’s a great way for even the most dedicated investment trust investor to balance their own portfolio. The irony of being an open-ended fund itself is obvious, but investors may prefer that the discount upside and downside in the portfolio isn’t doubled up by the fund’s own structure.
3i Infrastructure’s (3IN) recent write-down of one of its holdings, for a c. 5% hit to NAV, is a timely reminder that 3IN operates in a higher-risk part of the infrastructure spectrum than many peers, taking a private equity approach to the asset class with control stakes in a range of businesses with infrastructure characteristics. So, yes, equity risk, but usually anchored by the long-term revenue streams that are familiar to infrastructure investors.
While the recent hit to NAV might be painful, 3IN has built a niche for itself as a leading investor in businesses that, as they grow, are becoming increasingly attractive acquisitions for larger global infrastructure investors. Recent price weakness following the write-down looks like a good opportunity to me.
Alan Ray
Alan joined Kepler in October 2022. He has worked in the investment funds industry for over 25 years. The first half of his career was as an investment trust analyst, leading a highly-rated sell-side research team. More recently he has worked in corporate advisory and investment banking roles, with a focus on alternative asset classes.
William Heathcoat Amory Ι Managing Partner, Kepler Partners
Long experience (or should that be painful experience?) has taught me to ignore the temptation to pick single stocks, and leave it to the professionals. Technology funds first came to real prominence in the dot.com era. It’s amazing to think that there was a period in the wilderness for them during the early noughties. Post GFC, interest in specialist funds exposed to tech companies picked up again, and it kept building.
I have been a long-term holder of Allianz Technology Trust (ATT), as a highly active way of introducing high-growth names into my portfolio without taking single stock risks. The team are based right in the centre of the action in San Francisco and have a good track record of identifying innovative growth themes well ahead of the crowd. The trust tends to have an overweight to mid-cap names, which makes it differentiated to a passive exposure to the sector.
Over five years, the share price total return has been 70%, which is a strong return in absolute terms, but behind the mega-cap dominated index, and the underperformance exacerbated by a premium rating giving way to a discount over the five years.
Way back, I remember feeling nervous of the impressive gains I had experienced since purchase, and the superstitious in me meant that when the share price reached 123 pence for the first time, I saw an opportune time to top-slice. I did the same when the shares reached £3. Needless to say, I have ignored any impulses to sell any shares since, given that tech consistently appears to be the only growth game in town. I am confident that the team will continue to do well for me over the long term, even if the AI bubble bursts.
William Heathcoat Amory
William Heathcoat Amory is a co-founding partner of Kepler Partners LLP and leads the Kepler investment trust research team. William has over 20 years of experience as an investment company analyst. Prior to co-founding Kepler Partners in 2008, he was part of the Extel number 1 rated research team at JPMorgan Cazenove.
Jo Groves Ι Investment specialist, Kepler Trust Intelligence
I’m not sure whether to confess that my investing journey started with the predecessor to the ISA, the trusty PEP. In the immortal words of Meat Loaf, I’d do (pretty much) anything for returns – and it’s been a reliable sidekick to my mortgage over the years.
Most of my ISA is held in active funds, with a sprinkling of stocks. I like having a core of global holdings, leaving the experts to make the big calls, so I hold Alliance Witan (ALW) for its best-ideas portfolio, alongside the ever-popular Scottish Mortgage (SMT)which offers a healthy dose of the Magnificent Seven alongside private disruptors such as SpaceX.
While NVIDIA (NVID) hogs the headlines (and yes, I caved to FOMO on that one), my real winners have been closer to home. UK small-cap fund Rockwood Strategic (RKW) has delivered a 135% return in the five years I’ve owned it, proving that a high-conviction portfolio can really pay off if you pick the winners.
At the other end of the spectrum, Barclays (BARC) has nearly tripled my investment in two years, and UK smaller caps Vanquis Bank (VANQ), Funding Circle (FCH) and Capita (CPI) have all outperformed even the mighty NVIDIA over the last year.
Looking overseas, I’ve backed the big-hitting, on-the-ground teams ofBlackRock Frontiers (BRFI), Schroder Oriental Income (SOI) and Schroder Japan (SJG) to uncover the best opportunities in under-researched Asian markets. The two Schroder funds are up more than 40% in the last year, with BRFI not far behind on 30%.
Jo Groves
Jo is an investment specialist for Kepler Trust Intelligence. Prior to joining Kepler Partners, she worked as an investment writer at Forbes Advisor and The Motley Fool. Jo started her career as an auditor at Arthur Andersen, before joining the corporate finance department at Close Brothers where she advised corporate and private equity clients on acquisitions, disposals and other strategic issues. Jo has a BSc in Geography from Durham University and is a Chartered Accountant (ACA).
Closing thoughts
Five investors, five approaches but the same conclusion: whether you’re a fan of investment trusts, global funds or the occasional opportunistic stock pick, the best ISA is the one that’s invested and making your allowance count. Pick your strategy, take the plunge and let compounding work its magic in a tax-free wrapper.
All numbers as at 23/02/2026 unless stated otherwise.
The reporting period has changed from the calendar year to the tax year.
The SNOWBALL began its journey on 09/09/22 with seed capital of 100k and an income target of 5% compounded.
Tks to Mr. Market the target has been increased to 7% compounded p.a.
7% re-invested back into your Snowball nearly doubles the income every ten years.
Currently the SNOWBALL invests in Investment Trusts because many of them trade a discount to NAV and as their price falls the yield rises, also Investment Trusts have reserves to pay their dividends in time of market stress.
As income is the only criteria for re-investing for the SNOWBALL it could re-invest in ETF’s if market conditions change.
The new figures are for the tax year
2023/24 £11,072*
2024/25 £9,541
2025/26 current £11,638
* Includes a special dividend
Next year’s fcast can be nudged up to £10,505 and the target of £11,240, which would mean the SNOWBALL is well ahead of the current plan.
When the day arrives and you want to start to spend some of your hard earned, you could buy an annuity. The gamble is there is no way of knowing what the income will be.
Canada Life figures show the 65-year-old with a £100,000 pension pot could buy an annuity linked to the retail price index (RPI) that would generate a starting annual income of £3,896. That’s up from £2,195 in the New Year following a 77% spike in rates this year. Oct 22
You have to hand over all of your hard earned, so not an option for the SNOWBALL.
Option 2.
Use the 4% rule.For further information use the search facility above.
The SNOWBALL has a comparative share VWRP for passive investment where the value is £158,788, not too shabby.
Option 3.
Your Snowball.
The current fcast income for the SNOWBALL IS between 10 and 11%.
Lets say income of 10% p.a.
Using the comparison share the income would be £6351 p.a.
If we plan ahead
Let’ say income of 18% p.a.
The comparative share VWRP, would have to have a value of £450 k.
After periods of out performance, comes under performance, not if but when.
An option could be to have part of your Snowball in a passive investment as if you can choose the time when to sell, you may not make a huge profit but you shouldn’t lose any of your hard earned, maybe drip feed some of your dividends after the price has fell. Not advice, as you alone are responsible for your Snowball.
A Retired Engineer’s “Buy ‘Em All” Strategy Is Crushing It
Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist Updated: February 25, 2026
Oh, the joys of home ownership. We found a moldy corner last week. And not a little spot, either.
The house is still standing. Still appreciating in value. And still ours. We dealt with the setback. Which is exactly what one of our Contrarian Income Report subscribers has been doing with his portfolio for 138 straight weeks.
Roy M. from New Jersey wrote in recently with a report that made my whole week. Roy has an IRA that is exclusivelyCIR. Every single position, equally weighted. No picking favorites, no second-guessing your editor, no overthinking it. His reasoning?
“I like CIR but I don’t have the expertise to pick and choose from an already recommended list. Why would I pay for a site in which I still have to decide which ones are best? Why don’t I just buy ’em all equally?”
Love this!
Roy is a retired engineer, and engineers solve problems with systems rather than gut feelings. His system is beautifully “boring” (a compliment in our world). He keeps a rolling 10% cash position and lets dividends flow to cash rather than reinvesting them. When we add a new pick, he buys it. When I sell something, he sells it.
He even has a daily 30-second routine: pull up the CIR portfolio, count the 25 positions, flip to closed positions, and make sure the last one removed is still the last one removed. And when a new issue drops? He hits CTRL-F, types “action,” and executes whatever comes up. (Roy describes himself as a “lazy reader with a touch of dyslexia, LOL.” I’d call him the most efficient investor we’ve got!)
The results speak for themselves. Roy started with $50,172 in June 2023. His portfolio now sits at $65,163. That’s roughly 11% annualized returns with no new money added and no withdrawals taken. Not bad for a “lazy” strategy!
But here’s what I really love. Roy has tracked every single drawdown (temporary decline) over those 138 weeks and compared it to the S&P 500. There have been 8 drawdowns total, and the data tells our story better than I ever could:
On average, when the S&P dipped about 6%, Roy’s CIR portfolio only fell about 4%.
In one nasty stretch, the S&P cratered 18% while Roy’s portfolio dipped just 6%!
Only once did CIR drop more than the broader market, and it was by barely a percentage point. This is excellent because the shallower the drawdowns, the more our portfolio compounds higher.
Roy’s 11% CIR Portfolio
Remember, Roy is a retiree on a fixed income. He doesn’t want drama. He wants to sleep at night and know his money is working. That’s exactly what he’s getting!
This is the whole idea behind what we call the “No Withdrawal” approach to retirement. We build a portfolio that throws off enough cash in dividends so that we never have to sell a single share.
Roy’s 25 CIR positions currently yield 8.3% on average. On a million-dollar portfolio, that’s $83,000 per year in dividend cash flowing straight to your account, paid monthly and quarterly. On a $500K stake? A cool $41,500 per year. Without touching principal!
Plus, Roy’s principal isn’t just intact. It’s actually up. He’s collecting the income and the appreciation—that’s the beauty of a dividend-heavy portfolio. The cash keeps coming whether the market is up, down, or sideways.
And when those drawdowns come (they’re normal, not unusual), CIR members do way better than vanilla investors riding the S&P rollercoaster. We are spared the 18% plunge. We simply ride a 6% dip while our dividends keep depositing!
It’s like my house. Mold showed up (“drawdown”), we didn’t sell the entire place (panic and lose money). I know it sounds silly—who sells their house over a moldy corner?—but that’s exactly what many “investors” do when the market dips 6%!
Roy? He plays it right. Eight drawdowns, eight recoveries, and 11% yearly gains. Keep on truckin’ indeed, Roy!
Roy’s results aren’t magic. They’re the product of a diversified, high-yield portfolio built to pay you in cash, not one that depends on stock prices going up, prayers being answered, and principal drained.
I call it the “No Withdrawal” Portfolio. It’s designed to generate 8%+ yields so you can live on dividends alone, without ever touching your precious shares. Need a miracle to retire? Nah. A “No Withdrawal” Portfolio will do just fine!
The Robots Are Coming for Insurance (and Paying Us 8.3% Dividends, Too)
Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist Updated: February 24, 2026
There’s a group of stocks out there that most people think yield just 2%—or less.
But they’re way off. In reality, these “elite” payers yield 2X, 3X—and in the case of a stock we’ll talk about below, even nearly 4X that. I’m talking about a tidy 8.3% shareholder yield (remember that phrase) here.
This one has another advantage we love in a market like today’s, too: Its management team “buys the dips” in the share price for us. We don’t have to do anything at all!
Stocks like this are perfect for times like these, with the economy still ticking along nicely.
At the same time, we’re likely to see continued market choppiness as AI takes more industries to the woodshed.
But the major American insurance stock we’re going to dive into next doesn’t care. It’s already making money from AI. And as the tech boosts this company’s earnings and cash flows, I expect its 8.3% shareholder yield to climb higher still.
Aflac: A Dividend Stock at the Leading Edge of AI Disruption
We’ve discussed AI in the insurance industry before. The sector is ripe for AI disruption, as many of the things insurance companies do are good candidates for automation.
That’s not news to the management team at Aflac (AFL), which has automated 54% of its “wellness” claims—dental visits, eye care and the like. That’s a perfect job for AI because these customers don’t have to provide a raft of documents like, say, those filing disability or critical illness claims do.
The upshot for Aflac, a holding in the portfolio of my Hidden Yields service, is that it can reassign humans to more complex tasks, cut costs (including, yes, spending on new hires) and keep customers happy by processing claims faster.
What’s more, insurance is not likely to be disrupted the way, say, software stocks have been. After all, while you can use AI to “vibecode” your own app, you can’t use it to whip up your own insurance policy!
Which brings me to that 8.3% shareholder yield.
Shareholder Yield Beats Dividend Yield in Every Way
A dividend stock like Aflac has three ways to pay us:
Its current payout: This is the dividend we get immediately after we buy.
Share buybacks, which cut the number of shares outstanding, juicing earnings per share and other per-share metrics.
Buybacks get a bad rap, but they shouldn’t, because when they’re done right (i.e., when the stock is cheap), they can juice our returns. This is another problem with the current yield—it tells us nothing about this buyback effect.
This is where shareholder yield, which includes buybacks and dividends, shines.
An 8.3% Shareholder Yield Is Aflac’s Best-Kept Secret
Over the last decade, Aflac has nearly tripled its dividend. That soaring payout has acted like a magnet, yanking the share price up as it’s soared:
Aflac’s “Dividend Magnet” Goes to Full Power
Because of that payout growth, investors who bought Aflac a decade ago are actually yielding 8.1% on their original buy now.
And that’s just the start of the company’s shareholder-return story.
Let’s move on to buybacks: Over the last decade, Aflac has taken 38% of its shares off the market, making all of the company’s per-share metrics (most importantly earnings per share) look better. And earnings per share drive share prices over time.
In addition, those buybacks fuel dividend growth, as they leave Aflac with fewer stocks in which it has to pay out. It’s no coincidence that Aflac’s dividend growth (in purple below) has taken off as its share count (in orange) has dropped:
Buybacks Ignite Aflac’s Share Price
Let’s zoom in on the last year for a moment. In the chart below, you can clearly see that management has tempered its buybacks when the share price has strengthened (as in the summer of 2025), then accelerated them on dips.
Management Buys the Dip for Us
That’s the kind of smart buyback management we love—and it’s a lot different from what many companies do: robotically buy back the same amount of stock whether it’s cheap or dear.
Which brings me back to shareholder yield, which combines all three shareholder rewards: current dividend, payout growth and buybacks. To calculate it, take the amount spent on buybacks and dividends in the last 12 months, deduct share issuances then divide that into the company’s market cap.
Aflac makes this easy for us: In its fourth-quarter earnings presentation, it broke this all down nicely:
Source: Aflac fourth quarter 2025 update
Here we see that in 2025, Aflac spent about $4.8 billion on dividends and buybacks, with a lean toward buybacks. (Which is okay by us, given the stock’s strong performance.)
With a $58-billion market cap (or the value of all outstanding shares) as of the end of 2025, we can say that Aflac has an 8.3% shareholder yield—again just a bit under four times the current dividend yield 2.2%.
Let me close with another fast mention of AI, because the tech ties back in here: As AI cuts Aflac’s costs and helps it tap new growth areas, I expect the company’s shareholder-friendly management team to share more of that wealth with us—and boost the firm’s shareholder yield as they do.
Start With Aflac—Then Build a Whole Portfolio of Big Shareholder Yields
Shareholder yield isn’t just another indicator to look at when picking dividend stocks. As we just saw with Aflac, it’s a whole new way of dividend investing.
Once you start applying it to other dividend stocks, you’ll be spotting big yields all over the place—and in plenty of stocks regular investors never bother to look at.
This strategy starts with a strong Dividend Magnet, like the one we saw with Aflac. As payouts rise, stock prices follow. Add in a smartly run buyback program and voila—you’ve got yourself a strong, and growing, shareholder yield.
There is a stock market saying Penny expensive, pound cheap as lots of investors would not buy a penny share because of the risk but would consider buying if the price rose.
Similarly with Renewables lots of investors will not take the risk of buying because of the high yields but IF/WHEN the price rises and the yield falls they may be enticed back into buying.
Capitulation is the moment in which investors/traders lose hope in their long position and liquidate at a loss.
When investors/traders capitulate, they sell for fear of a continual decline in the stock price.
The end of a capitulation can present a buying opportunity due to the opinion that everyone who wanted to sell has already done so.
If you read any BB’s, you would have seen lots of investors posting they have sold out, capitulation.
The rules for the SNOWBALL for any new readers, there are only 3.
RULE 1
RULE 2
RULE 3
Here’s the plan.
The 2026 fcast is 10k. The SNOWBALL is ahead of fcast so it’s possible it could earn income for year 7/8 subject to Mr. Market but it’s too early in the year to change the fcast.
