“When you own a business and you have two guys – 98 and 91 – running the business, you have a right to see them in person.” With these words, Warren Buffett welcomed the shareholders of his investment holding company Berkshire Hathaway to the Annual General Meeting, which was held on April 30 for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic as a face-to-face event at the CHI Health Center in Omaha. On stage, alongside his co-chairman Charlie Munger, seven years his senior, he was also supported at times by Greg Abel, who is regarded as the crown prince for the successor at the top of the group.
Undeterred by the current dislocations in geopolitics and fears of runaway inflation, Berkshire has launched its biggest stock purchases in at least a decade. The holding increased its involvement in the US stock market and expanded the conglomerate’s holdings in the energy company Chevron and the computer games giant Activision Blizzard. While the war in Ukraine and inflation gave the S&P 500 its worst quarter in two years, Buffett invested a net $41 billion in stock purchases – the most since at least 2008.
The “Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting” in Omaha has long been the biggest spectacle in the financial world and is not called the “Woodstock of the capitalists” for nothing. You can find some impressions in our photo series above. (mb)
