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FRI, MAY 10, 2024
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Berkshire after Buffett: New hints from the shareholders meeting |
Last weekend's Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, featuring CEO-designate Greg Abel sitting by Warren Buffett's side, helped bring the company's after-Buffett future into somewhat sharper focus. Reuters wrote Abel "is expected to preserve the culture at the behemoth even if he does not match the star power of his legendary boss." It cited expectations among investors and analysts that Buffett's successor will make long-term investments and won't pay dividends to shareholders.
And in what was something of a surprise, Buffett told shareholders that he expects Abel will have ultimate responsibility for both acquisitions and the company's equity portfolio. "I would leave the capital allocation to Greg, and he understands business extremely well. If you understand business, you'll understand common stocks."
There had been speculation that portfolio managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs would make stock decisions for Berkshire after Buffett. They still may wind up with day-to-day responsibility, but under Abel's supervision. |
VIDEO: Warren Buffett says Greg Abel will make Berkshire Hathaway investing decisions when he's gone (May 4, 2024) |
The biggest change in Berkshire's culture after Buffett may indeed turn out to be greater supervision. He has famously put managers in place that he trusts and then lets them operate independently. That's already changing as Abel, in his role of vice chairman for non-insurance operations, has been keeping a closer eye on the subsidiaries. Reuters quotes the chief revenue officer at Borsheims as saying last week, "Greg looks at our inventory levels more than Warren did. He will sometimes circle it and be like 'Oh, that looks high.'"
And the CEO of Brooks Running told the news service, "If there are warts on your balance sheet, [Abel] is going to find them."
Buffett agrees. At Saturday's meeting he said, "We haven't had a history of being very tough on people that coasted, and we've had some that would do that. Greg will do something about it, and Charlie and I wouldn't have." |
VIDEO: Successor Greg Abel will have a more hands on approach with managers, says Buffett (May 4, 2024) |
Even Abel may have more supervision than Buffett did.
Berkshire director Ron Olson told a pre-meeting conference in Omaha that Berkshire's board is confident Abel is the right person to succeed Buffett, although he did concede he "is not going to be as entertaining as Warren and Charlie have been through the years."
But when Olson was asked if Abel would have as much freedom to spend money, he wasn't quite as confident. "There [are] going to be changes in terms of the confidence level that we had in Warren. I don't know how changes will evolve when somebody replaces Warren. Let's not get too anxious about it. He's going to be around for a while. But once that happens, there may well be changes."
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Buffett turns to his iPhone after landline failure at Berkshire |
Warren Buffett had to use his iPhone to conduct business at Berkshire Hathaway for several days this week after a phone outage due to wet cables hit parts of Omaha, including his company's headquarters.
The Omaha World-Herald quoted Buffett as joking on Wednesday, "We had this meeting that went over very well all weekend, and now to anybody who has phoned us in the last three days, they think we have gone out of business."
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In a 2018 interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Warren Buffett holds the flip phone he used to use before switching to an iPhone
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Buffett told the paper Monday was especially tough because he had left his iPhone at home. He was able to get some business done with it the next two days.
"I don't know how to do much with it, but I do know how to answer calls. I'm glad we didn't sell all of our Apple." |
Activist sues Buffett and Berkshire over arrest at last year's meeting |
A right-wing shareholder activist has filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett of improperly turning off his microphone as he was speaking in support of his shareholder resolution at last year's annual meeting and then having him arrested for trespassing. The charges were later dropped by prosecutors.
Peter Flaherty of the National Legal and Policy Center told the Associated Press, "I’ve never been interrupted while making a shareholder presentation. I’ve never had my mic cut, and I’ve never been removed from a meeting room. And I’ve certainly never been arrested. Those things were unprecedented for me."
Flaherty's presentation on his proposal that Berkshire's CEO and chairman roles be separated was ended after he insinuated Bill Gates was associated with Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking of young women. A different NLPC proposal on China, along with five other shareholder proposals, were voted down at this year's meeting. |
BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET
Some links may require a subscription |
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE |
2024 Annual Meeting Highlight Reel |
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BERKSHIRE'S TOP U.S. STOCK HOLDINGS - May 10, 2024 |
Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S., Japan, and Hong Kong, by market value, based on today's closing prices.
Holdings are as of December 31, 2023 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on February 14, 2024, except for: The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. |
Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.) If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.
Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly-recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website. -- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch |
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