Berkshire Annual Meeting: Greg Abel emphasizes continuity with Buffett and denies breakup

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New CEO Greg Abel did most of the talking at Berkshire Hathaway’s first shareholder meeting, but Warren Buffett remained a prominent figure as chairman of the board, even though he sat on the arena floor with his fellow board members.

Six minutes into the meeting, Buffett’s “jersey” emblazoned with a big 60, reflecting his 60 years as Berkshire’s CEO, was hung from the rafters of the CHI Health Center arena.

A three-minute video produced by Berkshire then showed videos and photos from those 60 years.

“It’s not my show today, but it looks like we’re celebrating two anniversaries today,” Buffett said from his seat on the floor.

It’s been nearly a year since the board confirmed Abel as CEO following Buffett’s sudden announcement that he was stepping down, and “the decision could not have been better.”

“It’s been 100 percent successful. Greg has done everything I’ve done and then some. And in every case he’s done better. He’s the right person.”

It’s been nearly a decade since Berkshire bought $35 billion in Apple stock. Buffett said it came out to about $185 billion, “and I didn’t have to do anything terrible.”

He praised outgoing CEO Tim Cook for making that investment a success.

The first question-and-answer session began with a “deepfake” video version of “Warren of Omaha” asking Abel why Berkshire shareholders should hold onto their stock for the long term.

In his response, Abel emphasized that the company currently has nearly $400 billion in cash, “creating unique opportunities” for investment.

If there is a “strong value proposition,” Berkshire is “ready to commit significant capital and act decisively. That’s what we’re here for.”

And during the lunch break, viewers of CNBC.com’s live stream and attendees in the arena watched a live interview with Mr. Buffett by CNBC’s Becky Quick.

When asked why it’s not a good environment for Berkshire to invest in right now, Buffett said, “People have never been more in a gambling mood (in the financial markets) than they are now, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad investment.”

“That means the prices for so many things seem so ridiculous.”

He also reiterated his long-held habit of only investing in companies that he understands, saying, “Compared to 10 years ago, we understand a smaller percentage of the total. We haven’t learned about new industries in recent years.”

The full 25-minute interview is below.

The theme of the meeting was “The Legacy Continues,” and Mr. Abel assured shareholders that the company’s culture would be maintained, even though Mr. Abel would keep a closer eye on the subsidiary than Mr. Buffett.

The question was, “Are there any points in Berkshire that don’t make sense as a conglomerate, so would you split the company up?” Abel answered, “No way.”

“We believe our conglomerate structure works without bureaucracy and inflated costs.

“We have no intention of selling any subsidiaries or dissolving the group for such reasons.”

Mr. Abel and insurance chief Ajit Jain recalled an exchange between Mr. Buffett and Charlie Munger over the past few years, when Mr. Jain asked whether Berkshire would insure ships sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Simply put, it comes down to price,” Abel said, to laughter from the audience and howls of praise. “I liked Charlie’s answer.”

Before the meeting began, Berkshire reported an 18% increase in first-quarter operating income and a more than 28% increase in underwriting.

The company was a net seller of stock, with sales of about $24 billion and purchases of $16 billion.

As a result, cash increased to a record high of $397.4 billion as of March 31, an increase of 6.5% from the end of the fourth quarter.

Excluding BNSF’s cash and subtracting Treasury bills paid, Berkshire’s preferred metric, the total was $380.2 billion, an increase of 3.0%.

Berkshire announced in what it described as a one-time announcement two months ago that it had resumed stock buybacks on March 4 after a nearly two-year hiatus. The SEC filing did not include further details.

But a week later, Berkshire filed its final proxy statement ahead of the annual meeting, including the number of shares outstanding as of March 4, the meeting’s record date.

As we reported at the time, a comparison with the share count in late January revealed that Berkshire had repurchased the equivalent of 309 Class A shares that day, or about $226 million.

Some investors had hoped this would be the beginning of aggressive buybacks.

At least for now, that hasn’t happened.

Despite the stock price decline toward the end of the month, Berkshire repurchased $234 million in stock for the entire month of March, just $8 million more than the amount on March 4, according to the company’s Q1 10 results released Saturday.

And the number of shares listed in its 10th quarter as of April 14 shows there were no significant buybacks in the first two weeks of last month either.

Greg Abel will admit to himself that he’s not as glamorous as Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger.

“Attendance is down significantly this year, with the arena (from 18 to 975 seats) only slightly more than half full,” the Associated Press reported, but added that even with empty seats, “no other corporate convention can match the crowd at Woodstock for Capitalists in the Berkshires.”

CNBC.com’s Yun Lee wrote that the exhibit hall where Berkshire-themed merchandise will be sold has “a little more room this year.”

“Unlike previous years, the lines were shorter and the crowds were noticeably smaller.”

Legendary trader Paul Tudor Jones now says he regrets downplaying Warren Buffett’s years of investing success, saying “he just happened to be in the right place at the right time” to capture the bull market in U.S. stocks.

Appearing on the Invest Like the Best podcast with Positive Sam CEO Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Jones acknowledged that Buffett is a “reversal genius” who understood the power of compound interest when he was just nine years old and remained calm in the face of stock losses.

“Warren, I’m so sorry to hear this. You’re the OG of compound interest. I wish I was a tenth as smart as you.”

Here’s a section where Jones talks about trading and investing with Buffett:

The charity auction for “A Seat at the Table” lunch with Warren Buffett, Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry and his wife, lifestyle entrepreneur Ayesha Curry, will expand to include a series of weekly, limited-time online auctions offering autographed collectibles.

Among the items for sale are a Warriors jersey signed by Stephen Curry and a $1 bill signed by Buffett.

The auction will be held from April 29th to May 15th at ebay.com/glide_eatlearnplay.

The lunch auction begins May 7th and ends May 14th for Seat A at Table.

Proceeds will be split between San Francisco’s Glide Foundation and Curry’s Eat. learn. play. A foundation “committed to changing the school experience for generations of Oakland students.”

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BRK.A stock price: $710,300.00

BRK.B stock price: $473.01

BRK.BP/E (TTM): 15.24

Berkshire Market Capitalization: $1,020,622,694,116

Berkshire Cash as of March 31st: $397.4 billion (up 6.5% from December 31st)

Excluding railroad cash and outstanding Treasury bills: $380.2 billion (3.0% increase from Dec. 31)

Berkshire resumed share buybacks on March 4, 2026.

Berkshire’s top U.S. and Japanese listed stocks by market capitalization, based on the latest closing prices.

Holdings are as of December 31, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s February 17, 2026 13F filing. However, the following cases are excluded.

A complete list of holdings and current market value is available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

If you have any questions or comments about the newsletter, please send them to alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, we do not forward questions or comments to Mr. Buffett himself.)

If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet, you can sign up here.

I also highly recommend Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders. It’s collected here on Berkshire’s website.

— Alex Crippen, Warren Buffett Watch Editor