Warren Buffett yesterday staged his annual love-in for tens of thousands of Berkshire Hathaway investors – dubbed the “Woodstock for Capitalists”.
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Quarterly operating profit for the Omaha, Nebraska-based insurance and investment conglomerate probably fell to $3.73 billion from $4.24 billion.
“Derivatives are still risky in large quantities”, said Buffett.
A group of environmentalists tried to make an impression on Buffett with their resolution urging the company to write a report on the climate change risks Berkshire’s insurance units face.
In July, 2015, Berkshire Hathaway Energy joined with other companies to sign the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, to demonstrate their intent to tackle the problem of climate change.
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett tours the exhibit floor before presiding over the annual shareholders meeting on Saturday, April 30, 2016, in Omaha, Nebraska.
“We’ll be late sometimes, we’ll be wrong sometimes, but we’ll be right sometimes too”, Buffett said Saturday.
The outcome of November’s presidential election is unlikely to change the fact that the U.S.is a “remarkably attractive place in which to conduct a business”, he said.
And, just like going to a favorite band’s concert, there’s the allure of being in the same room with Buffett and Vice Chairman Munger, rather than watching them online.
Though Berkshire won’t release its full first-quarter report until next Friday, Buffett offered a preview of results.
Insurance underwriting profit dropped to $213 million from last year’s $480 million. “My boss is a huge Warren Buffett follower, and I got hooked”.
“I have not seen evidence that convinces me that it’ll be more likely I reach 100 if I suddenly switched to water and broccoli”, he said.
“Now that may sound like a awful result for hedge funds, but it’s not a bad result for the hedge fund managers”, Buffett said to laughter at the event held in Omaha. The crowd is smaller than last year’s 50th anniversary meeting but still dwarfs any other corporate meeting.
“It was a very unfortunate period when the manager got overly entranced” by a company whose business model was “enormously flawed”, Buffett said.
In January, Berkshire closed on its largest acquisition ever, paying $32 billion for aerospace parts maker Precision Castparts.
Buffett also said he was comfortable with Berkshire’s big stakes in Wells Fargo & Co and, through in-the-money warrants, Bank of America Corp, but he warned about the risk that derivatives pose for most of the world’s biggest banks, especially if markets were disrupted.
Mark Hughes, a money manager from Ashton, Maryland attending his 25th meeting, said he sees no sign Mr Buffett and Mr Munger are winding down.
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Schwarzenegger picked Munger for the team after the 92-year-old’s ruthless pitch that said “Hire me if you want to live”. But, he said, finding such investors is “like looking for a needle in a haystack”.
