Sunday, May 3, 2015

Warren Buffett celebrates 50 years of management of Berkshire Hathaway – The Obs

by Luciana Lopez and Jonathan Stempel

OMAHA (Nebraska) (Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway shareholders Saturday celebrated the 50th anniversary of the arrival of Warren Buffett as head of the US conglomerate, in a general meeting which gave the multimillionaire investor the opportunity to display his optimism

Warren Buffett and his right hand man, Charlie Munger, responded to questions for five hours. – and sometimes Reviews -. shareholders, analysts and journalists

The general meeting, well attended by shareholders as per the financial press and sometimes dubbed the “Woodstock of Capitalism”, took a festive round this year, a part of the public up to sing “Warren and Charlie, we love you!”.

Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder, sometimes a majority, more than 80 companies, including giant Burlington Northern rail, auto insurer Geico, textile Fruit of the Loom or the business aircraft rental company NetJets. It manages an investment portfolio of over $ 115 billion (103 billion euros).

Its size, diversification and cash $ 63.7 billion, said Warren Buffett, allow it to continue to thrive.

“We will be very willing to act in the event of economic turbulence, whatever they are, and we will be ready when most people would not be” has he said.

Warren Buffett, 84, took charge of Berkshire Hathaway May 10, 1965, when the company was a struggling textile company.

His success as a manager and investor has made the company a group with a market capitalization now approaching $ 350 billion and has allowed it to become itself the third largest fortune according to Forbes, with an estimated wealth to 72.7 billion.

On Saturday, he refuted the idea that Berkshire has become “too big to fail” (literally, “too big to fail”) and require enhanced supervision by financial authorities and Wall Street.

DEFENCE COOPERATION WITH 3G

When asked, as every year for a long time, on his own succession, he declined to give the slightest clue about the identity of his successor. He also hinted at the possibility of writing a new annual letter to shareholders in February, implying that he had not intended to withdraw.

He however, explained that the next leader of Berkshire should not be only financial. “I do not wish to place at the head of Berkshire someone who would only experience of investment and no operational experience,” he said.

He also praised the good results Matt Rose, the executive chairman of Burlington Northern, seen by some as one of the favorites to succeed him but whose name did not appear in the latest edition of the letter to shareholders.

Of Other potential successors include Ajit Jain Buffett, who heads the group’s insurance activities, and Gregory Abel, head of the energy division, only leader to answer a question Saturday at the AG out of Buffett and Munger.

Warren Buffett also took advantage of the event to welcome its collaboration with 3G Capital, the private equity group with which he bought HJ Heinz in 2013 before acquiring Kraft Foods this year, but is regularly accused of drastically downsize companies he takes control.

“People 3G managed to build beautiful business,” he said. “I know of no company whose policy is to say that we have many more employees than necessary.”

As usual, Warren Buffett was asked about multiple topics, practices a home loan subsidiary of California to the impact on health of Coca-Cola products, including soft drinks giant Berkshire is a historic shareholder.

About the euro, it estimated that the single currency “can and probably will survive” but added that “real changes” would probably be required.

(Marc Angrand for the French service)

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