CALIFORNIA: Warren Buffett said on Saturday that Berkshire Hathaway Inc is being lifted by a US economy faring far better than he predicted early in the coronavirus pandemic, though investor euphoria is making it hard to deploy cash.
Speaking at Berkshire’s annual meeting, Buffett said the economy has been “resurrected in an extraordinarily effective way” by monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve and fiscal stimulus from the US Congress.
“It did the job,” Buffett said. “This economy, right now, 85 per cent of it is running in super high gear.”
Buffett lamented how an influx of so-called special purpose acquisition companies and inexperienced investors hoping for quick riches have made markets feel like a casino, making it hard for Berkshire to deploy more of its $145.4 billion cash hoard.
But the 90-year-old retained his optimism for the future of the company he has run since 1965, including after he’s gone.
“We’ve seen some strange things happen in the world in the last year, 15 months,” Buffett said.
“It has reinforced our desire to figure out everything possible to make sure that Berkshire is, 50 or 100 years from now, every bit the organisation and then some that it is now.”
The annual meeting was held in Los Angeles, where Buffett joined Berkshire’s 97-year-old vice chairman Charlie Munger, to answer more than three hours of shareholder questions.
Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, Berkshire’s other vice chairmen and potentially successors to Buffett as chief executive, also fielded several questions.
Asked about their rapport, Jain said that they don’t interact as much as Munger and Buffett, but they talk every quarter about businesses they oversee.
Berkshire scrapped for a second year its annual shareholder weekend in its Omaha, Nebraska, hometown, an extravaganza that normally attracts around 40,000 shareholders.
— Reuters
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