Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting will be held on Saturday. Here, chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, together with vice chairman Greg Abel, will answer questions from the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders present at the meeting in Omaha.
Buffett, 93, has attended 60 such meetings since taking over Berkshire in 1965. Abel was named as Buffett’s successor as CEO in 2021.
This year’s meeting is extra special as Charlie Munger, who died in 2023, will not be by Buffet’s side. Munger, the former deputy chairman of Berkshire. The meeting started with a moving video dedicated to Munger.
Strong results
Berkshire is an $862 billion investment company with dozens of businesses, including BNSF railroad, Geico auto insurance, Dairy Queen and Fruit of the Loom. They also own well over $300 billion in shares, almost half of which is Apple.
Over the past year, Berkshire’s stock has risen by 23 percent. On Saturday morning, the company announced strong results for its first quarter, with a large increase in cash.
Operating results increased 39 percent to $11.222 billion, driven by large gains in insurance regulation and insurance investments. Revenue increased by 5 percent to 89.87 billion dollars.
Analysts expected operating profit per share to rise to $4.47, with revenue up 2 percent to just over $87 billion.
Reduces Apple share
Warren Buffett and his investment team reduced Berkshire’s massive Apple stake for the second quarter in a row. The company reported that its Apple stake was worth $135.4 billion at the end of the first quarter, signaling a 13 percent decline in the number of shares to about 790 million. Tim Cook is present at the meeting, and says he knew about these cuts in advance.
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