Berkshire Hathaway 2026 Annual Meeting: Part 3 5/3/26

3 May 2026 · 1 h 8 min · 26 chapters

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In short

This episode is part 3 of CNBC’s coverage of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2026 Annual Meeting, featuring Greg Abel’s second Q&A session with shareholders. Key topics: how Middle East conflict (including Iran-related disruptions) affects Berkshire subsidiaries; tariff/import-cost reimbursement and how businesses manage tariff-driven input costs and customer uncertainty; BNSF’s strategy to maintain rail competitive advantage as trucking and autonomous tech improve; Berkshire’s decentralized oversight model and how it handles underperforming managers; whether Berkshire would ever divest or break up the conglomerate; and Berkshire’s active international insurance partnership with Tokyo Marine.

Guests

Katie Farmer (CEO of BNSF Railroad) and Adam Johnson (CEO of NetJets and new president of Berkshire’s consumer products, service and retailing businesses), plus Greg Abel (new CEO) and CNBC host Becky Quick.

Key claims/examples

LSBI drag-reduction chemical shipments via cargo planes to relieve Middle East constraints; chemical input costs “effectively doubled” short-term; BNSF improved single-car efficiency (more volume with 260 fewer locomotives) and uses digital twins/predictive ETAs; NetJets focuses on “safety and service” and debt reduction after 2015; Pacific Corp sale due to multi-state regulatory mismatch.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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CEO Greg Abel and Leadership on Stage

1:14 to 2:15

CEO Greg Abel introduces Katie Farmer and Adam Johnson, discussing their roles.

“We pick up here with the second session of questions and answers hosted by Berkshire's new CEO, Greg Abel.”

Geopolitical Impact on Subsidiaries

2:15 to 3:35

Greg Abel discusses the effect of geopolitical tensions on Berkshire's businesses.

“This question comes from Chris Freed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, how has the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East impacted Berkshire's subsidiaries?”

Challenges and Management Strategies

3:35 to 6:00

Discussion on how Berkshire's teams adapt to challenges posed by the geopolitical climate.

“is, again, a team is very much taking the approach that that's the situation we're in, we can manage our business, and we very much quickly move to what's the best solution for our customers?”

Katie Farmer on Railroads and Commodities

6:00 to 8:30

Katie Farmer shares how the railroad business is impacted by current events.

“But the point is, unfortunate situation, and we've got, you know, men of service and women of service over there and putting themselves at risk.”

Adam Johnson on Consumer Products

8:30 to 10:30

Adam Johnson discusses the impact of rising fuel prices on consumer product demand.

“That obviously when you think of, I touched on it being an input to many of our companies, but really globally it's an input to so many things.”

Decentralization and Accountability at Berkshire

10:30 to 14:01

Discussion on the decentralized model of Berkshire and how it impacts management.

“Manjab Singh from Mountain House, California.”

Capital Allocation Insights

14:01 to 15:28

Learn how capital allocation and operational efficiency impact performance.

“With the capital they have there, because even capital, you have to manage your operating expenses well.”

Operational Excellence Strategies

15:29 to 17:36

Discover strategies for improving operational efficiency and customer service.

“So the first thing that we really focused on in 2025 was we knew that we needed to improve our single car operational efficiency.”

Competing with Trucks

17:37 to 20:38

Understand the challenges and strategies for competing against trucking companies.

“was around our technological transformation.”

Challenges in Business Turnaround

20:39 to 24:24

Hear about the journey and strategies for turning around an underperforming business.

“There was just a pilot with autonomous trucks.”
Show all 26 chapters

Impact of Tariffs on Operations

24:25 to 28:00

Learn how tariffs affect operations and financial strategies of subsidiaries.

“Okay, this comes from Brian Simpkins in San Diego, California.”

Impact of Tariffs on Business Operations

28:00 to 30:08

Learn how uncertainty surrounding tariffs is affecting investment decisions in the manufacturing sector.

“And I think where we see that really showing up is, you know, it's very difficult for our customers from a planning perspective.”

Berkshire's Strategic International Investments

30:08 to 31:11

Discover Berkshire Hathaway's approach to international partnerships, particularly with Tokyo Marine.

“My name is Amir Rehani from Vancouver, Canada.”

Engagement in Sports: Canada vs. USA

31:11 to 34:25

Hear a personal anecdote about cheering for hockey teams and the cultural significance of sports.

“Yeah, Ajit did an exceptional job of discussing Tokyo Marine, and I'll touch on it.”

Circumstances for Divestment at Berkshire

34:25 to 39:33

Understand the scenarios that could lead Berkshire Hathaway to divest from certain businesses.

“And the losing person had to wear the jersey of the other, and I now own Oilers gear.”

Defending the Conglomerate Model

39:33 to 42:00

Learn about Berkshire Hathaway's efficient conglomerate structure and its avoidance of bureaucracy.

“So to the second part of the question, absolutely not.”

Capital Deployment Strategy Discussion

42:00 to 43:10

Learn about the strategies for deploying capital effectively within subsidiaries.

“We can take that capital and decide, is it needed in a different operating business, or do we see opportunities in equities?”

Greg's Evolution in Cash Flow Assessment

43:10 to 44:30

Greg discusses his approach to assessing cash flow certainty and risk.

“On behalf of myself and my investment partner, Xu Qi, thank you very much for this opportunity.”

Understanding Investment Risks and Opportunities

44:30 to 48:08

A detailed exploration of how Greg evaluates investment risks, including a case study on Envy Energy.

“So I think I'll start with the important part of that question.”

Final Questions and Transition Thoughts

48:08 to 49:11

Discussion on the importance of leadership and collaboration at Berkshire.

“Now, touching on technology companies, we're not going to ever say, geez, this is a specific sector for us or we need to be in it.”

Leadership Transition and Team Dynamics

49:11 to 53:20

Greg reflects on leadership structure and the support from his team and board.

“but um we're we're beyond one o 'clock now this will be our last question for today so we look forward to it and uh and then i'll have some uh conclusionary thoughts and comments but uh thank Thank you, Becky.”

Berkshire Meeting Reflections

56:00 to 56:48

The speakers reflect on the significance of Owner's Day and the experiences shared at the meeting.

“Now, lastly, again, thank you for this remarkable experience for all of us at Berkshire.”

Buffett's Investment Insights

58:34 to 1:02:16

Discussion on Warren Buffett’s cautious investment strategy amidst market highs.

“The 61st Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is in the books.”

Greg Abel on Berkshire's Future

1:02:16 to 1:06:36

Greg Abel discusses Berkshire's approach as a conglomerate and capital allocation strategies.

“Again, a team that is very much taking the approach that that's the situation we're in.”

Market Opportunities and Future Strategy

1:06:36 to 1:09:29

Exploration of market opportunities and the ongoing involvement of Warren Buffett.

“And Greg laid that out again, the idea that this is a really tax efficient way of taking capital from one business and putting it in other businesses.”

Market Opportunities and Future Strategy

1:10:33 to 1:10:58

Exploration of market opportunities and the ongoing involvement of Warren Buffett.

“It's smart to always have a few financial goals.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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1:03Hi, everyone. This is CNBC's Becky Quick in Omaha, Nebraska, and you are listening to part three of our full coverage of the 2026 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting. We pick up here with the second session of questions and answers hosted by Berkshire's new CEO, Greg Abel. With him on stage was Katie Farmer, CEO of the BNSF Railroad, and Adam Johnson, CEO of NetJets and new president of Berkshire's consumer products, service and retailing businesses. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the break. Becky, Warren, thank you for that exceptional interview. Appreciate that.

1:48Well, we're very fortunate to have Katie and Adam in these leadership roles. Again, it was very purposeful to have them on stage. We want them to have the opportunity to engage with our owners, our shareholders, and we really do look forward to the questions. So thank you for joining us on stage again. Thank you.

2:15Becky, again, great to have you back. Thank you for that interview. And if you'd like to start, thank you. Okay, thanks, Greg. This question comes from Chris Freed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, how has the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East impacted Berkshire's subsidiaries?

2:34Sure. I'll touch on it, and then I'll make sure, because it impacts really, in a variety of ways, all our businesses. But what I'm most proud of are our businesses. We operate these businesses for the long run, just like we do, obviously, for our shareholders. We take a long-term approach. There's not many days, and I used to joke when I more had Adam's role, there wasn't a day I woke up where the phone wasn't ringing with good news. That phone rang. You knew you were going to have a bit of a challenge, and we have that portfolio. But that's okay. we'd be talking and we always worked our way through it.

3:13And we have a team that would lean in and we'd come through and it could be anything. And we never tried to use that as a reason we couldn't do something or get to the right place. And what I've seen associated with the, obviously the war in Iran and the various conflicts in the Middle East is, again, a team is very much taking the approach that that's the situation we're in, we can manage our business, and we very much quickly move to what's the best solution for our customers? How can we deliver and continue to deliver what we've done to them, and what's their expectations around that? And our teams will work incredibly hard to come up with solutions.

4:01I touched on LSBI, the drag reduction agent on the pipeline company. They don't usually sell a lot of product into the Middle East as far as moving. It's more a domestic-based product for Canada and the U.S. when you think of a drag reduction agent on pipelines. Literally being cargo planes of that chemical being moved in the Middle East to help free up supply and i.e. remove some of that constraint. So there's so many things that go on when they start trying to figure out how to solve the challenge. Now, what I would say is it doesn't mean there's not immediate impacts to our businesses. If you think of companies in America or around the globe, petroleum and natural gas matter is such a fundamental input to so many products.

4:57And the reality is, if you think, I touched on our chemical group, their input is generally a petroleum product. And the output is the various products they produce, obviously, that are byproducts of that. But their input costs have effectively doubled in a very short period of time. But again, we'll manage through that, and that's the beauty of being part of Berkshire. They know, first, we'll take care of our customer, we'll find the right answer, we'll manage the challenges, and the value creation will be there in the end. So there's some short-term pressure on our chemical businesses. If you looked at their first quarter profits individually, they would be down or flat to down because they've got some challenges, for example, on the input side.

5:48But they're delivering what the customer needs, and that rebalances over a period of time where our prices will move up pursuant to our contracts. We'll be treated fairly in the end in that they'll reset and then may unwind a little bit slower. But the point is, unfortunate situation, and we've got, you know, men of service and women of service over there and putting themselves at risk. And that in itself is scary because a lot of our employees have family involved. But, you know, as far as running our businesses, it's really heads down. We'll get through this and we'll keep operating everything for the long run.

6:30And again, it includes how we'll operate our assets. We're not going to put the asset at risk to try to get to a short-term outcome because a petroleum price is higher. Or petroleum prices are higher. It's very much continuing to take that long-term perspective. Katie, obviously, it can impact demand and what's being brought in on the coast. Are you seeing that? Or what else are your observations? Yeah, it's interesting. And Warren has said this in the past before, you know, the railroad is a really good reflection of what's happening in the industrial and the consumer economies because our loadings really cut across all the various commodities.

7:11You know, we touch agricultural products. We touch coal, the industrial commodities like cement and steel and aggregates. You know, certainly our intermodal business, which is such a big part of our business, reflects what's going on with the consumer. And so we're seeing the impact from the conflict in the Middle East in a couple of different ways. First of all, I would say that if you look across our various commodities, it's created an opportunity for some of those commodities just because of the disruption in the supply chain. In addition to that, you know, we see commodities like aggregates and steel, things like that, that are favorable, and we're seeing an increase in those.

7:53But then some of the commodity areas that use energy in the manufacturing of those commodities are certainly being impacted by the increasing fuel prices. The largest segment of our business, as I mentioned, is intermodal. And so as fuel prices increase, our intermodal business becomes more competitive. And so we're seeing an increase there relative to what's happening in the Middle East. I would say in general, though, as we think about it, if fuel prices stay too high for too long, it has an impact on consumer demand. And when that happens, that cuts across all of our businesses. And have you started to see that yet?

8:34That obviously when you think of, I touched on it being an input to many of our companies, but really globally it's an input to so many things. And as that price pressure moves up, obviously the demand side is challenged. Are you seeing that yet? Yeah, we're seeing some. We are starting to see that impact some of the businesses. I would also say, Greg, as we talk to some of our large intermodal customers, what they are telling us, some of the big retailers are, the customers are having to make choices now. So as fuel prices go up, they make choices about what they're buying. And so that's where I get back to it.

9:10If it is a prolonged, higher fuel price environment, I do believe that we will see that customer impact across our businesses. Thank you. Adam, across your businesses, what are you seeing? What are you feeling? Yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, when you see the increases that have occurred and the instant spikes in some cases that occurred, certainly on the consumer product side, on the retail side, it has affected some of the demand on that side. I would also tell you that we have also faced multiple times at NetJets with$100 a barrel pricing. We see those spikes. We see the demand. I haven't seen it on the net jet side.

9:58We went from really the last two years from about 5 to 540 a gallon. We're seeing spikes up to 7 a gallon. I would tell you if I see that kind of sitting at 7.25, 750 a gallon, then you'll see it start impacting even on the higher end side on the net jet side. So we're feeling it. It's not the first time we've had to deal with this. We're prepared to deal with those things and make adjustments where we need to, But this certainly is affecting, I would say, some of the retail businesses and some of the consumer product businesses. Great. Thank you, Adam. And thank you, Becky, for the question. We'll now move to Station 5.

10:39Good afternoon. Manjab Singh from Mountain House, California. Warren has spoken very highly of both you, Greg, and Katie. so I'm grateful to have you both leading our company, and I'd like to ask each of you a question. Greg, as you know, the Berkshire system relies on decentralization. Each manager runs their own subsidiary. As CEO, which operating units do you think need more oversight, and how will you handle a manager who underperforms? And Katie, as Greg highlighted, BNSF's profitability lacks its competitors. With eventual technology advancements and autonomous driving, trucking costs will continue to drop.

11:41How will BNSF maintain its competitive advantage advantage from competitors and new technology. Great. Thank you. So associated with the letter I wrote to all of you as owners, I highlighted some important, as I've touched on, values. One of them was our decentralized model. I also touched on risk discipline, capital allocation. and when we think of our businesses, we have an exceptional group of leaders and businesses and yes, they do own their businesses as Katie touched on it in her video, as Adams alluded to it and talked about it. There is a great deal of ownership across each of our subsidiaries and that's absolutely how we'll continue to operate and see it as an extremely effective model.

12:41They're closest to their customers. They understand what needs to be done. And if they think like an owner, we get very good outcomes across the group of companies. I would highlight, though, that with a decentralized model, we do not take responsibility. And I was one of those. I ran BHE. It's a great set of responsibilities. or Berkshire Hathaway Energy, shouldn't be abbreviating, sorry. But when I read it, that autonomy meant you embraced it. And there was a great amount of accountability that came with it and sheer pride that you wanted to do things right. We've got a clear set of, when we talk about integrity and how I started it, we have a lot of expectations.

13:33and that's where both on the integrity, how they approach managing their business and servicing their customers. And I've said there's a lot of external factors we can observe. But our primary engagement is with their, are they managing the risk and risk and foremost? Do they see themselves as that chief risk officer you've heard us discuss many times? Are they good allocators of capital? With the capital they have there, because even capital, you have to manage your operating expenses well. I view everything, you know, when we're spending money on a, it may be a capital expenditure. It can be an operating expenditure.

14:16You're deploying our shareholders' capital. Are we doing that well? And we focus on that. So that's part of that equation of allocation capital. And the reality is if we're seeing a situation where we're underperforming or we're seeing some potentially poor decisions, that's where we engage and have a discussion. And usually it's relative, and I touched a bit on this with Katie, it's relative to what we see externally. And just really trying to understand where our performance gaps are. And then it quickly moves to, and we don't have the people at corporate to go in and, quote, help. So it's not like we send in an army.

15:01But there's generally some people within our subsidiaries or maybe someone we know that could help them with that performance gap. Because we do treasure continuous improvement and strongly, as you've heard, believe in operational excellence. And as I've said, there's room for us to get better. And that's how we would approach the situations where we see the gap and need to close it. Katie, maybe you can probably touch on both. Absolutely. So thank you for the question. And as I said, we absolutely know that it's critically important that we continue to drive an efficient operation, that we continue to have a competitive cost structure, and that we continue to close the gap with our competitor relative to our profitability.

15:45There's a couple of specific things that we're working on, And it's really about operationalizing the improvement that we saw in 2025 into the first quarter of 2026 and making sure that we're really institutionalizing that. So the first thing that we really focused on in 2025 was we knew that we needed to improve our single car operational efficiency. And when I say single car unit operational efficiency, we run a couple of different networks. We run our intermodal network. We run our agricultural and our coal network, our bulk networks. And then the balance of it is what we call our car load network, our single car network.

16:27And that's where we have non-unit train. It takes a lot of operational focus. It takes a lot of work effort. And it consumes a lot of resources. And so anything you do to improve that single car network is good for all of your customers. It frees up resources. It creates capacity. It allows you to handle the same amount of volume, if not more, with fewer assets. And that translates through then to the improvement that you're seeing in the profitability. An example of that is in the first quarter of this year, we handled more volume than we did in the first quarter of last year, but we did it with 260 fewer locomotives.

17:10That translates into a more consistent service product for our customers. and it also translates into better financial results, which is what you saw in the first quarter of 2026. So we're spending a lot of time ensuring that we have operational excellence, not in just all those other networks, but in the network that frees up resources and drives improvement in operational excellence for all of our customers. The second area, and you heard Greg talk about this earlier, was around our technological transformation. We really believe that in addition to driving that operational discipline that you saw in 2025 and into 2026, that working with the new BNSF tech organization to drive that next step level of improvement.

17:59And so you saw units dwell in our terminals. Less time that translated through to the financial results that I talked about. You saw velocity improve as well. And so how do we leverage technology then to take the next step level improvement? So I'm excited about what we're doing there. We're literally attracting data scientists, operations research folks, and we're putting them alongside of our operators in our network operations center. We're looking at things like digital twins, which gives us the opportunity to model how we run the railroad before we actually run the railroad. We're looking at opportunities to do predictive ETAs for our customers, which allows our customers to have a better product.

18:48It allows us to turn the assets faster. And then last, what I would say is that we're just, it's good old-fashioned going to work on attacking the largest structural cost buckets. We had a record for the first quarter in our fuel efficiency. That's the kind of thing we want to do because it makes us competitive with trucks. It is good for the environment. And it's good for our financials. So those are the things we're doing to close the gap relative to profitability. Now, your question about competing with trucks, I would say a couple of things with that. First of all, we have the largest intermodal franchise of all of the railroads.

19:31We have a unique relationship with J.B. Hunt. And we have been extremely successful in converting over-the-road freight. We've done more of that than anybody. So we know how to compete with trucks. But your question about technology is a good one. And I would say that we, in the past, have invested in a system called positive train control, which is a safety overlay that allows us to operate the railroad efficiently. As you know, we operate in a closed circuit. And so we have the ability, to your point, ultimately to run the train with fewer people than we operate with today. And in fact, if you go way back in time, we used to operate the trains with five people on the train.

20:13Now we're down to two people on most of our trains. So the technology will continue, just like most industries, will continue to evolve. And we're continuing to look at that as well. The last point I would say with that, though, is that we also have to be allowed to innovate. And so we need regulation that supports the ability for railroads to be able to compete with trucks. As you said, we know that there are trucks out there running today in our state in Texas along I-45. There was just a pilot with autonomous trucks. what we have to be able to do is to be able to compete with that and to be able to innovate.

20:55And so we're going to need regulations that allow the railroads to be able to do that. So that's how I think about competing, ensuring that we're closing the gap, as well as maintaining our competitive advantage with trucks. Thank you, Katie.

21:15Adam, on that point and Katie's point, you came, literally Adam had left for a very brief stint 10 years ago and had a very senior role in that Jets and had been, effectively been recruited to be a CEO of another business that was going public and we were fortunate enough to convince Adam to come back. But he came back to a challenging situation. The asset was underperforming. We had billions of dollars of debt. Back to ourselves, to the parent company, but it was debt. It had been incurred. And some real challenges.

21:55When you think about how we address underperformance and how do we get a business back on track, maybe you just want to touch on that period of time and and and that bringing the business back and and and how how you achieved that uh yeah well i one i will tell you um you know the one of the i came back on june 1st of 2015 and that monday monday afternoon and and many of the team that's up here today we got in a room and i asked a question about how many people really understand sort of the bookends of our business. NetJets is complicated. We're ad hoc. We're unscheduled. We fly to thousands of airports.

22:36Commercial airlines will fly to 50 to 100 airports. We fly to 150 countries around. So it's a very complicated business. And I asked a question to the team, how many people do you think really understand the bookends of our business? And I didn't like the answer. I won't tell you what the answer was, but it was too few. And it sort of started there. And what we did was we really said, to build this culture the way we want it, if I understand what you're doing, you understand what I'm doing at deeper and wider levels, we're going to do good things together. So it sort of started on that Monday afternoon when we started building that back.

23:09I will tell you, it was also a reinforcement probably from Greg. I remember my first board meeting prep and I was excited and we were starting to kind of move and I was talking about growth and we're going to get this right, we're going to grow. And Greg pulled me aside in a very kind way. And he said, why don't you pay$1 back to Warren and work on getting your debt down? That was a teaching lesson. I took that to heart. I heard it clearly. I actually already knew that. And so we just started really putting our blinders on. And we said, safety and service, safety and service. Warren bought NetJets after becoming a customer in 1995, bought NetJets in 1998.

23:48And he did a video for us that we still use. And he said, I want safety and I want service. And we've been really focused on making sure everybody stays in that alleyway. That in large part, plus a lot of hard work, is why we're able to pay our debt back. We're able to pay cash back to Berkshire Hathaway and move our way, as I said in the video, out of the other column and be first in the service business. And I'm proud of that. Great. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Katie.

24:24Becky? Okay, this comes from Brian Simpkins in San Diego, California. The question is, has Berkshire Hathaway considered seeking any tariff relief or reimbursement programs for its wholly owned operating businesses exposed to import costs, and how significant is that impact across the portfolio? Let me start with the impact across our portfolio. because it's very close to discussing the situation in the Middle East in that, yes, there was the tariffs, and each business may have fallen under a different tariff for what they were importing. And we'd gone through it once already in the first term in administration, and there were lessons learned there, so we were both better prepared in how to manage through it and had realigned a certain amount of our input.

25:24So, you know, that was valuable. The second thing was, it's as I described with the conflict. It was heads down, and we'll just manage ourselves. Listen, there's some cost pressures here. We'll figure out how we're going to continue to serve the customer. We'll work through on delivering what they need, and there has to be some reasonable expectations on the other side that we'd recover those tears from our, from, through the, either through a direct contract with them or through the product we're creating. And, and, and that was a good approach in that we just held our course and wanted to continue to service them.

26:05So they, yes, there's financial impacts, but our team did a really remarkable job of addressing it and, and really minimizing the impact any of our businesses. As far as recovering it, that would definitely be at our operating level. They would be making such a decision. But overall right now, our perspective has been there's a lot to sort out when it comes to refunds, what we're eligible for. And so at this point in time we're very much taking an approach that um uh if it's appropriate our teams will evaluate it and and and again it'll be a discussion with our customers and and with a number of them so it it's it's an operating subsidiary decision but we're not naive to it and that we're encouraging them it's there's a lot to be sorted out at this moment in time and and and we're not pursuing them that doesn't mean we may not have a subsidiary now i'll look to our our team on stage here that may be pursuing one or seeking one.

27:11Katie, anything? Not as far as the reimbursement, but I would say just as far as the impact of the tariffs and what we're seeing with our customers. I would say that in early 2025, we saw several of our customers pulling forward shipments in advance of the tariffs. And we certainly saw our volumes ramp up at the beginning of 2025 because people were trying to get ahead of the implementation of the tariffs. So we did see an increase in volumes through early 2025. That really stabilized then in the back part of 2025. And then into 2026, I would say that our customers have really adapted to the tariffs and adjusted to the tariffs.

27:58With that said, it does cause some uncertainty. And I think where we see that really showing up is, you know, it's very difficult for our customers from a planning perspective. And I think it's keeping some capital on the sidelines as far as investment in manufacturing facilities. And it's just really the uncertainty of the tariffs that really is what we're seeing reflected with our customers. Thank you. Adam? Yeah, I mean, I would echo both those points. One, I would probably use Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, Jeff Rocker, who is an excellent CEO of that division. The new and used sales are slightly down in Q1 of this year compared to last year.

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28:41And part of that is sort of that same effect from the terrifying that occurred a year ago to today. I had to smile because we were collecting, okay, it's changed every day, as we know, and you manage through that. And just understanding the tariff bouncing ball was a job in itself. But I had to smile because I was actually calling our CEOs just to get their take on it. And the 32 companies in the portfolio, consumer product services and retail, it's a stat that I love. They've actually been around on average 88 years. And only 0.5 % of American businesses have been around more than 80 years. Our average in that sector from a founding standpoint is 88 years.

29:22And several of the five of the companies specifically, companies were founded in the 1800s. And when I called those CEOs, they said, we've been dealing with tariffs for 100 years, you know, kind of thing. And so not being dispensative at all of tariffs. The point is, I look at the whole tariff conversation as you're always going to have a curveball. I think of the CEOs in the last seven, eight years. We've had to deal with a global pandemic, the highest inflation, four years, and now this thing, the bouncing ball of tariffs. So the businesses have done an excellent job of managing through that.

29:56I wouldn't put it in the fund department of the things we have to deal with, but we're learning it. And I think we're in a pretty decent spot moving forward. Thank you, Adam. We'll move to Station 6.

30:16Good afternoon. My name is Amir Rehani from Vancouver, Canada. Thank you for hosting us, and thanks to everyone at the headquarters that makes this weekend possible. Berkshire's investments in the five Japanese trading houses was passive. Good businesses at good prices financed by GPN. Your Tokyo Marine deal is fundamentally different. A 10-year joint M &A and reinsurance partnership. That's a level of operational integration Berkshire has never done internationally. What does that look like in practice? And does it signal a broader shift toward active international partnerships under your leadership?

31:03And to put you on the spot, Greg, Canada versus USA in hockey, who are you cheering for? Sorry, sorry. Now I'm in trouble.

31:19Yeah, Ajit did an exceptional job of discussing Tokyo Marine, and I'll touch on it. But what and I teed it up a bit in saying it is a strategic relationship less than a financial transaction. Yes, we like the two and a half percent investment in the Tokyo Marine. And that will be a long term investment. It's the type of investment we put with our other five investments in Japan. We really think of those as forever because it goes beyond the investment. and it's very much around the relationships we want to build there. And you'll continue to see that. Ajit expanded on the underwriting opportunity that we do jointly participate in their risk and rewards associated with effectively also 2.5 % of their book there now.

32:18And that's, again, part of the financial transaction, but there's also a great deal of faith there. We, as Ajit said, and really Ajit says, and I take his word for that, but it's an exceptional company and their performance has been remarkable. So we're thrilled to have them. And then the third thing that was touched on was the partnership highlighted a variety of things, how we would like the relationship to develop. And that's not defined yet. So we'll continue to let that take its proper form. They're the type of partner that has the same culture, same values as us. So there's a little question it's going to be exceptional for many years to come.

33:05But as far as pursuing an absolute acquisition in insurance or something like that, that'll evolve with time, and that would be, obviously, the discussions Ajit and the senior team at Tokyo Marine would be having. And if such an opportunity materializes, we'd be thrilled with it. Now to the really tough question. Canada versus U.S. in hockey. I did find a way. It can cause a lot of angst in my own family. So I remember waking up that morning and Canada was playing the men. but I'd already decided a little bit earlier that when it came to the Canadian men versus U.S. men, Connor McDavid plays for Edmonton, and therefore I was going to cheer, because being from Edmonton, I would cheer for the Canadian men's team, and I've always followed the U.S.

34:03women, and I love what a program, the U.S. hockey, and I love U.S. hockey and how they approach the coaching and the development of the youth, And I think they've done a great job there. So I chose to cheer for the U.S. women, and it was the perfect outcome for me. So a little selfish in finding that type of outcome. I will say, Greg and I had an Oilers stars bet last year. Yes, true. And the losing person had to wear the jersey of the other, and I now own Oilers gear. Yeah, Kitty owns some Oilers jersey. And unfortunately, this year, neither of us did have that. that they're both on the sidelines very quickly.

34:44But thank you for that question. Becky? This question comes from a shareholder who didn't want to be identified, but it's a variation of a question that I got from several shareholders. Is there any future circumstance that you could envision Berkshire divesting businesses or being broken up? If so, what are those circumstances? The shareholder also writes, note, I don't want this to happen, but it's commonly discussed among followers of the company. Yes. So when we think of the question, and I think it's a good one, because we've always highlighted there are certain circumstances that we may not be the best owner of a business.

35:33We've touched on if there's labor issues that we cannot resolve. I would take it to the point then further in my letter I touched on if there's reputational risk that we're not willing to ever have our owners or shareholders or Berkshire experience and that we have to. Maybe the business has evolved, the customers have evolved. But if there's that type of situation, then that company does not belong in the Berkshire family. And it may be a fine business that can be owned by someone else, but it may mean we don't own it. I would then take it a little bit further. I touched on a couple of things.

36:19or one other thing before I jump to that would be we've often talked that if we have a business that is unsustainable and no longer generating operating cash for our shareholders, we have to make some serious decisions around that. If there's someone else who could operate it and make it be more successful, both for the customer and for our employees, then we have to consider that. Otherwise, that business is unfortunately in a place where we can't just fund it and experience losses. We would wind it down over a period of time, but we'd look for a better solution for our customers and employees.

36:57So that's always been the case. Well, that, at least from my perspective, has always been the case in how we'll continue to do it. I would say we're taking it. We take the obligation in making sure capital is properly deployed, obviously, very seriously. I touched on the regulatory compacted energy and that that has to exist. And we have to be, if we have capital deployed there, we have to get a fair return. We have a situation where we've actually announced we're selling a portion of Pacific Corp, our Washington state utility. And that's really a function of the fact that we have a multi-state process in Pacific Corp.

37:43There's six different states, and each customer is impacted in different ways. And I've already said we very much focus on what's the needs of each state and how can we best service them. And unfortunately, we're in a situation in Washington where they clearly had policy that they wanted from Pacific Corp, and it was having a significant impact on the costs of our other states. and as much as we would have liked to see what we call a multi-state compact, i.e. how do they balance all that, it wasn't occurring. And our other states were bearing costs that they felt were not theirs that were being imposed by another state.

38:25So we consciously said this isn't working for the six states. And the one state who had very specific policies and wanted them implemented, we chose to exit. We found a very good purchaser who very much supported and could implement what was required at that state. So there we have evolved and it's a situation where it just didn't make sense for Berkshire to be an owner of that asset or our owners to be an owner of that asset and it'll be, I believe, a better outcome for the state and for their customers. So there are those situations where we would divest. And we will always approach things that when we buy something, it's forever.

39:13When we acquire a utility, we tell the regulators it's forever. But it has to be a relationship that works. And if it's broken, we'll find a better path, both for the company, the employees, customers, and obviously for Berkshire. Yep. Greg, there's a second part of that question, though, that gets at, is there a point where some of the parts or something, is there a point where it doesn't make sense for Berkshire to be a conglomerate, where you would break up the company? Yeah. So to the second part of the question, absolutely not. I touched on it early. We are a conglomerate, but we are an efficient conglomerate.

39:58We don't have layers of management. We don't have a bunch of committees telling our businesses how to run, how they're going to manage their customer relationships. We try to, at the odd time, create frameworks so there's value shared across the businesses so they're aware of what our other businesses are doing. And technologies, that's one of them. We like our framework now. We think it's very effective across three of our businesses. So, of course, we want them to understand it. but we don't create layers. I remember when Adam took on the role, I nicely said, you know, there'll be no corporate group supporting you, either in Omaha or amongst your own team.

40:45He's got folks in NetJets, and they always step up and take more responsibility, including when I was in that role or in the vice chairman role. But the one thing we don't do is create layers of bureaucracy or other decision trees around it. And I think so many conglomerates end up with layers and layers of costs that don't add value to the overall corporation. I'm even careful when I talk about our metals group and our chemicals group because they're a group in, call it maybe, in my vision, I see similar opportunities. I want them to work together. but they don't have a corporate group on top of them or anybody directing them on what to do.

41:35They find ways to work together because they have a lot of the, can have the same challenges, can have the same customers. So we see our conglomerate structure working without the bureaucracy and bloated costs. We see a great opportunity to continue to move capital across those different groups in a very tax efficient way. Other people can't say, I want to move capital. BNSF's a great example. Yes, they have strong operating results, and they generate, they're in a cycle in their business cycle right now where there's a certain amount of capital we have to deploy into it, but we also receive substantial dividends from BNSF on an annual basis.

42:22We can take that capital and decide, is it needed in a different operating business, or do we see opportunities in equities? And if we don't see those opportunities, we're happy to, not happy, but we understand the logical home right now is U.S. Treasuries. We think that's a good asset. We prefer to see that deployed in a different fashion. Yes, when the opportunity presents itself, but it allows us to really move that capital across the group. So I actually, the answer to the conglomerate is, yes, we understand we're one, we see it operates very effectively, and we do not see ourselves divesting of subsidiaries for that reason or ever breaking off a group.

43:09Thank you.

43:18Okay, Station 7.

43:27Hi, Greg. Hi. Hi, Greg. Katie and Adam. My name is Bori Wong. I'm here from Chengdu, China. On behalf of myself and my investment partner, Xu Qi, thank you very much for this opportunity. And congratulations, Greg, on surviving your first year as CEO. Thank you. I'm sure the sea feels a bit warmer than it used to be.

43:59As you lead Berkshire into this new chapter, what would you say is the most significant evolution in your personal framework for assessing cash flow certainty and margin of safety compared to Warrens? And specifically, are you more inclined towards technology companies that exhibits the same robust cash flows? Thank you for continuing the legacy of Mr. Warren Buffett and Mr. Charlie Munger. Thank you.

44:37So I think I'll start with the important part of that question. I mean, as far as how Warren thought about it, how Berkshire thought around approaching investments, quote our margin of safety around investments and how we how we approach it um we're absolutely aligned there and i and and that starts with our culture and values and how we've approached everything over the years um so if i go back to looking at opportunities and energy and it may have been an acquisition or deploying significant capital it quickly went to yes we understood the opportunity, but Warren, and I'd want to have this conversation, where's the risk, and do we really understand the risk associated with this?

45:29And I have a really great example, is that we were acquiring Envy Energy in the, had the opportunity to acquire it, and Warren was actually coming back from China and had been over there and I was waiting for him to arrive and land in Seattle and give him an update that we had this potential opportunity. And I very much knew the opportunity and what the value proposition was. I clearly had three significant risks in my mind that was anxious to discuss with Warren. and Warren landed and I had a short presentation so I'm asking him to just give me a call. It was literally one page, but just to really trigger it, can we have this conversation?

46:22And the immediate conversation we had was, yeah, the economics, you couldn't agree more, understood them, went right to the biggest risk. And I was just getting ready to walk him through the two or three risks I'd seen and want to make sure we understood it and we're comfortable and wanted his input. And the risk was fundamentally rooftop solar and how would it disrupt that business and disrupt our customer. We discussed it. We understood it was a challenge. I remember saying to Warren, well, that's part of the reason I'm sure we have this opportunity to acquire this public company, that there is a certain amount of risk and the board and the manager team had decided that they didn't see the same opportunity we did.

47:08But Warren went right to it and was all around the risk. And that risk did surface 12 months later, 18 months. We managed our way through it. Our team did a great job. But so I don't see there being incremental margins or we think of risk differently. We think of them as in the Berkshire mindset that we're going to understand the economic prospects of this opportunity. And as I said, we really go to that 10-year window potentially and say, what's the business look like 10 years from now? And is there enough safety margin 10 years from now? Is what we see at the outcome? Do we see an outcome? And if we don't understand what that looks like 10 years from now, I know Warren would say this.

47:52I would say it. Then we don't do it. There's no safety margin or maybe we can adjust some numbers or there'll be synergies or something of that. We have to have a vision of what that's going to feel like and look like. And that really is how we approach it. Now, touching on technology companies, we're not going to ever say, geez, this is a specific sector for us or we need to be in it. If there's something in the technology sector or in that group of companies, And we understand one of those companies to understand, again, what their opportunities are and what we view as the economic prospects for it.

48:37And we have an understanding of what those risks are. That doesn't preclude us just because it's in a technology sector or that. But it would start with back to the fundamentals of do we understand it, both the opportunities and the risks, and then is it fairly valued relative to that? And that's always going to be the approach. So thank you for your excellent question.

49:10now uh becky if this is okay uh we're gonna and and so please pick uh your toughest question but um we're we're beyond one o 'clock now this will be our last question for today so we look forward to it and uh and then i'll have some uh conclusionary thoughts and comments but uh thank Thank you, Becky. This question comes from Joseph Matias, and he said, Warren had Charlie's partnership for most of his tenure as CEO, which naturally reduced the risk of subpar investment decisions. Who will serve as the Charlie for Greg?

49:58and they're a reason why they're in the rafters together that was an incredible partnership and and one that uh you know you you can't replicate but what what i would start with is that very fortunate to still have warren as our our chairman and and that's very important and it makes for an excellent transition. I have an exceptional board of directors that I'm comfortable reaching out to any of them individually, depending on the circumstances and either the risk we're dealing with or an opportunity that may be present in any of our businesses or one that may be coming our way. So we're fortunate to have that exceptional group in place.

50:44and then it really comes back to our team that's in place and I said this when I was answering to Warren from Omaha that we want Berkshire to endure and that means yes I want to lead Berkshire and I'll be a strong leader I strongly believe that and I'll take Berkshire forward but it will be as a... You always need a single leader, and I think we strongly understand that. But you surround yourself with great people, and they're already here. I've been fortunate on the non-insurance operation to operate with Adam's 32 and the 18 that I still get to interact with a lot. Those 50, including Adam and Katie, obviously have an exceptional working relationship with Ajit and fortunate with that and would seek counsel regularly.

51:45Even as vice chairmen, we would constantly have a conversation around, he may be making an insurance decision, or I was making a decision around one of our non-operating businesses. And the first thing we'd cross-check is how does it impact your group. So have an amazing relationship and someone I immensely value the input. And then across our CEOs, we're so fortunate to have a great group that I would reach out to any of them on a specific circumstance and ask them for their input. And I generally know where they've dealt with a challenge or a significant opportunity. and I'd be the first to seek it out and say, let's talk about it and figure out our path forward.

52:36And it may be that it was someone on their team that really dealt with it. And then I'd want to be talking to their team. So fortunately, because of Berkshire and the way we're created, again, it is a unique structure, but we have an immense amount of resources around us. And then we have our team in Omaha who has supported Warren for all those years. They're remarkable folks. There's not a lot of them, but they are good, and they're exceptional, and we're fortunate to have them as part of the team. So it will be such that Berkshire endures and will endure as a team, but clearly with leadership.

53:19So thank you, Becky, for that last question. Thank you. Thank you.

53:30So as we wrap up today, obviously I can't help but thank everyone for joining us this morning and early afternoon, both as our long-term shareholders, those that are newer shareholders, and again, all of you that came for the experience. It's greatly appreciated. We enjoy this engagement. It all comes together because there's an individual awareness highlighted in the past. Pulls together the exhibit hall, pulls together everything here. I'd like to acknowledge Melissa Shapiro. Thank you.

54:19And then the light was over on that table, but we do have, and we made this announcement in December, our longstanding CFO, Mark Hamburg, is retiring in June of this year. we're very fortunate that then he will stay on for an incremental year as an advisor to our incoming CFO as a personal friend advisor to myself we will have Mark's knowledge resource and it's immense when it comes to Berkshire I like to

55:02Mark has been our CFO for 34 years. Not this June, the following June when he truly retires. It'll be 40 years with Berkshire, and it's been such an incredible career. And he wears so many hats in this organization. I mean, he's helping Melissa. Melissa's organizing and doing all, but when she has a question, she went to Mark to look for the answer around, be at the annual meeting. He's our corporate secretary. I like to say, and to replace Mark, we hired a CFO, but we also hired a general counsel. It took two to replace him, and more than that. So, Mark, thank you for your incredible contributions to Berkshire.

55:52Warren has highlighted those, and I can only echo all that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

56:09Now, lastly, again, thank you for this remarkable experience for all of us at Berkshire. We treasure what we call Owner's Day, that opportunity to communicate around what's going on in Berkshire, because we're so proud of it, absolutely committed to it, and passionately believe in Berkshire. But equally, the engagement of all you throughout the day, yesterday, into this afternoon, just greatly appreciated. Thank you, and look forward to seeing you next May. Thank you. Thank you.

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58:33There you have it. The 61st Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting is in the books. That was Greg Abel's first time running the show, but he did get a little help from the chairman, Warren Buffett. Buffett sat down with Becky ahead of the afternoon session and delivered a number of newsy comments. He kicked things off by saying that he is staying cautious with his own investments. I think it's all working. It's all working. It isn't our ideal surrounding area or environment, I should say, in terms of deploying cash for Berkshire.

59:13But in terms of how we got the right management, we got the right arrangement and, you know, we can pick our spots and nobody can tell us what to do exactly. And so sometimes we're doing nothing. But other times we get quite active. But with stocks sitting at record highs and at elevated valuations, Becky pressed him on the overall valuation picture and whether he sees opportunities anywhere. Here's what he said. That's compared to the markets to a church with a casino attached. And people can move between the church and casino. And I would say there are more people in the church and more people in the casino.

1:00:02But the casino has gotten very attractive to people. If you're buying one-day options or selling them, I mean, that's not investing. It's not speculating. It's gambling, just totally. There's nobody that can explain why they're buying an option for one day, unless maybe the fellow that made the$400 and some thousand dollars from knowing when we were going into Venezuela. I can definitely do it. But I mean, and the quantity of those things is just incredible. So we've never had people in a more gambling mood than now. But that doesn't mean that investing is terrible. That's, of course, been a persistent theme of Warren Buffett's for a very long period of time.

1:00:53He's always been skeptical of short-term traders' ability to outperform the market or certainly outperform a longer-term shareholder. the church attached to the casino and the attendance varies between those. So when asked about the impacts, just to get to Greg Abel's Q &A of the Iran war on Berkshire, Abel said while it impacts businesses in a variety of ways, he echoed Buffett's emphasis on long-term thinking. It impacts really in a variety of ways all our businesses. But what I'm most proud of are our businesses. We operate these businesses for the long run, just like we do for, obviously, for our shareholders.

1:01:34We take a long-term approach. There's not many days, and I used to joke when I more had Adam's role, there wasn't a day I woke up where the phone wasn't ringing with good news. That phone rang. You knew you were going to have a bit of a challenge, and we have that portfolio. But that's okay. we'd be talking and we always worked our way through it and we have a team that would lean in and we'd come through and it could be anything and we never tried to use that as a reason we couldn't do something or get to the to the right place and what I've seen associated with the obviously the the war in Iran and and the various conflicts in the Middle East is Again, a team that is very much taking the approach that that's the situation we're in.

1:02:21We can manage our business and we very much quickly move to what's the best solution for our customers? How can we deliver and continue to deliver what we've done to them and what's their expectations around that? And our teams will work incredibly hard to come up with solutions. Abel was also asked about his willingness to divest holding companies, divest subsidiary companies, and whether Berkshire will remain a conglomerate under his leadership. We are a conglomerate, but we are an efficient conglomerate. We don't have layers of management. We don't have a bunch of committees telling our businesses how to run, how they're going to manage their customer relationships.

1:03:11We try to, at the odd time, create frameworks so there's value shared across the businesses so they're aware of what our other businesses are doing. And technologies, that's one of them. We like our framework now. We think it's very effective across three of our businesses. But the one thing we don't do is create layers of bureaucracy or other decision trees around it. And I think so many conglomerates end up with layers and layers of costs that don't add value to the overall corporation. So I actually, the answer to the conglomerate is, yes, we understand we're one. We see it operates very effectively.

1:03:55And we do not see ourselves divesting of subsidiaries for that reason or ever breaking off a group. Thank you.

1:04:08As you can see, our Becky Quick is back with us. You know, I thought that was an interesting answer, and you pressed him on this idea. Do you envision down the road there'd be any kind of a breakup, some kind of a big spinoff or something like that? Pretty much swatted that away. However, before that, he did express a willingness under some circumstances to sell some businesses. It seemed pretty narrow in terms of what it would take, But I did think that was relevant. He seemed to want to get on the record with that. Yeah, because I think in some ways, he said, look, this is the same way I've been looking at things for a while.

1:04:37That's not necessarily the way it was seen, I think, under Warren and Charlie originally. The deal was if we buy you, we buy you. You're forever. And that was something that brought you in. Back again to the idea of Greg's roots as an operator. If a business is losing money, we're not going to continue to sustain that. If we can find somebody else who can run that business better, we'll sell it off. We're going to do what's best for our shareholders, also for the employees of that company, as he said, to not want to wind something down. But he said if we have to, we'll wind something down. Yeah.

1:05:07I mean, as the questioner said, I get this from a lot of investors in Berkshire, the curiosity around that. Now, on one level, it's like, what are you going to do? Sell a business for cash and just add to the cash you're not doing anything with? Right. But in the, you know, I guess in just a general capital allocation, you don't want capital to be eroded on one end of the business, even if it's relatively small. It's the definition of capitalism, right? The idea of a profit motive, that is what drives things to be more efficient. And he's basically saying we're capitalists. We believe in that idea when it comes to it.

1:05:39I think the question of the conglomerate was an important one, though, because it's a question that I got several times in the shareholder questions that were sent in. And you probably get this all the time, too, just in talking to people who follow the company. But that's that's the question. Will the conglomerate make sense? Because conglomerates over time don't tend to make sense. Berkshire has been the standout that says we're going to stand alone on this. There's always been the question is, will there be some sort of activist who tries to come in and break things up? It tries to say, is it more valuable if you break these things apart than the sum of the parts by putting them together?

1:06:09And that's part of the reason I wanted that answer on the record. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, his characterization of it's an efficient conglomerate or an effective conglomerate. And what Warren and Charlie always said was, well, we let the businesses run. They have to be profitable. They give us the cash because we have a great track record. of actually getting returns on newly invested cash, that works really well, even if there's no supposed coherent strategy as to why these businesses should be under one roof. Right. And Greg laid that out again, the idea that this is a really tax efficient way of taking capital from one business and putting it in other businesses.

1:06:45Now, in the past, under Warren Buffett, that's always meant that you can take that money and invest it in stocks because he was such a great stock picker. I think the evolving idea of this company is you can take that money and use it to do huge CapEx in, you know, maybe Berkshire Hathaway Energy. Maybe if you're looking to do something, maybe it's with the railroad, maybe it's one of the other businesses you can buy and acquire other bolt-on businesses for some of those and let them expand, increase your operations. So I think we have to look at that idea of capital allocation more broadly and differently than we have under Warren Buffett as the CEO.

1:07:17And there was that other question from the room that gave Greg the opportunity to create any differentiation between his approach to capital allocation and what kind of emergency safety you look for in the cash flow metrics and would you look at technology more closely. Right. He declined the opportunity to point to any daylight between him and Warren on that. Basically, there's a Berkshire Hathaway way. Right. And that's where we're going to keep going. Very thin layers kept coming back to the idea of we're not building a bureaucracy with a lot of layers. We want to make sure that we operate efficiently.

1:07:47And that's why this conglomerate works versus others. Yeah. And then the question of who is your Charlie was kind of fun at the end. No individual yet appointed to that role. A lot of people. But I will say again, back to that idea of when he and Ajit were on stage together, it was a very natural flow to watch some of those things happening too. But the reason that you're seeing people like Katie Farmer and Adam Johnson, who's now running 32 companies, is because he's relying more heavily on someone like Adam to do a lot of that lifting. Fascinating nugget Adam highlighted, which is that the average age of the companies now under his purview is 88 years.

1:08:20And that's 30 some consumer companies. Right. Quite remarkable. And they and they use that as a way of downplaying these kind of near term challenges like tariffs and like Iran war. Like we've we've seen this before. Right. The idea that comes through somewhere in the culture. We've seen this before, even if we personally haven't seen it before. Right. What about Warren's comments? Anything what most struck you about those? You know, the idea I think you guys played some. I didn't hear the sound because I was walking back from the stage, but I think he played some of the ideas of he's still looking around and things don't look all that cheap in the market, not huge opportunities.

1:08:53And by the way, he's looking. He comes to the office five days a week. He's still pretty involved in that. He told us when we last sat down with them last month that, yeah, he had made a small purchase at that point. So he's still playing every day, looking for these things and they're active. But I think he and Greg both would love to get a phone call at any point if there's a a seller of a business they might be interested in. Even a year ago when he first announced that he was going to be stepping down at the end of that series, you could actually perceive his eagerness to get that call over the course of the next year or so while he was still going to be day-to-day involved, as he still is.

1:09:29Anyway, that concludes things for CNBC's coverage of Bircher's 61st annual shareholder meeting. Mike, it's been a pleasure. Yeah, it's been great. It's been great hanging out here with you. We've got lots more to come. Mike and I are going to be reunited on Monday morning, in fact, on Squawk Box. I'll still be on the ground here in Omaha, and we'll be bringing you more information from what we've been learning all weekend. Mike and Melissa Lee are going to be holding down the fort back at the NASDAQ. That program starts, of course, at 6 a.m. Eastern time. Don't miss it. Bye, everybody. That does it for us.

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In the third and final episode from the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha, CEO Greg Abel takes the second Q&A session alongside BNSF Railway CEO Katie Farmer and Adam Johnson, CEO of NetJets and President of Berkshire’s consumer products, services, and retailing businesses. Together, the three address questions about the future of Berkshire’s subsidiaries, the current inflation environment, and much more. And finally, CNBC’s Becky Quick and Mike Santoli recap the busy day with highlights from both Q&A sessions and Becky’s interview with Warren Buffett. 

 

For more Berkshire Hathaway coverage: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/02/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-annual-meeting-2026-live-updates.html

For past Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meetings: https://buffett.cnbc.com/annual-meetings/


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