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Shareholders have been queuing since five in the morning to enter. The Berkshire meeting is perhaps the most popular event in the financial world, but more than the accounts, what matters here is the protagonist, Warren Buffett, the only investor who for decades has filled the arena of Omaha, in the state of Nebraska, as one football stadium. This year is the first meeting of Berkshire Hathaway without Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger, who died in November at the age of 99, and the handover from Buffett, the 93-year-old founder, president and CEO of Berkshire, is clearly evident in the meeting. , to his designated successor as CEO, Ajit Jain, who runs Berkshire’s insurance business. Buffett himself underlines the moment of handover: «By now the phone calls I receive from Berkshire’s operational managers are practically close to zero». In short, age is unfortunately advancing. Buffett seems to joke about it: «I feel good, but I know something about actuarial tables»
The arrival of Buffett
Berkshire’s event is important for the company, for investors but also for Ohama, where last year the meeting allowed the city’s hotel rooms to be 93% filled. This year the theme is to understand when and where Buffett intends to invest the enormous liquidity of Berkshire Hathaway, which after some divestitures – including the reduction of the stake in Apple – increased to reach the record figure of 189 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2024. Buffett now has shares worth $336 billion in his portfolio. The difficulty of investing liquidity was also explained by Buffett, underlining that in this long phase of strong market growth the opportunities have inevitably been reduced. «If Berkshire Hathaway does something big», Buffett explained to his shareholders, alluding to the enormous liquidity which will presumably amount to 200 billion at the end of June, «this will probably happen in the United States». This year’s growth will not be bombastic, explained Buffett, but the results for the quarter are positive.
Berkshire Hathaway, members queuing since five in the morning to listen to Buffett
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Strongly growing operating numbers, profit down
Berkshire Hathaway closed the first quarter with a record operating profit of $11.2 billion, up 39% compared to the same period in 2023 thanks mainly to the good performance of its insurance activities. Net profit fell by 64% to 12.7 billion, but number one Warren Buffett has always invited investors not to consider this budget item as it is subject to high volatility due to the accounting obligation to also record capital gains not realized. In February Buffett had lamented the absence of “significant deals” that would have allowed the company to achieve “amazing performance”. In the quarter, the value of the stake held in Apple fell sharply: -22% to 135.4 billion compared to -11% recorded by stocks on Wall Street. It is therefore reasonable to deduce that Berkshire has sold a significant number of shares in the Cupertino group. Finally, during the quarter, the company repurchased its own shares for 2.6 billion dollars.