Some 30,000 rapt shareholders are descending on Omaha for what’s been called “Woodstock for Capitalists.” Pandemic lockdown apart, it will be the first without Munger, Buffett’s longtime partner who passed away in November about a month shy of his 100th birthday.
“The meeting will only have one comedian up there” this year, said David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland and a Berkshire shareholder, who has attended more than 20 annual meetings. “There’ll be, let’s say, a more serious, less humorous background.”
The annual meeting will be exclusively broadcast on CNBC and livestreamed on CNBC.com. Our special coverage will begin Saturday at 9:30 a.m. ET. For the first time, Berkshire will broadcast its annual meeting movie that had previously always been reserved only for those in attendance in Omaha. Many speculate this year’s will be a tear-jerker tribute to Munger.
Vice Chairman of Non-Insurance Operations Greg Abel, Buffett’s designated successor, will fill Munger’s seat in the afternoon session, helping answer shareholder questions. Vice Chairman of Insurance Operations Ajit Jain will join Buffett, the CEO, and Abel in the morning session. Buffett has said they expect to field about 40 to 60 questions Saturday.
“The tone of the meeting is certainly going to be a lot different without Charlie,” said Steve Check, CEO of Check Capital Management and a longtime Berkshire shareholder. “He was the one that really made it funny. It’s getting closer and closer to the transition, so it’s good to see Ajit and Greg on the stage.”
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger at a press conference during the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders Meeting, April 30, 2022.
CNBC
Munger’s investment philosophy rubbed off on Buffett early on, giving rise to the sprawling conglomerate worth $860 billion that Berkshire is today. Generations of investors also appreciated Munger’s trademark bluntness and humor, rare to come by on Wall Street.
If anything, the sea of Buffett admirers will cherish his folksy wisdom even more as the “Oracle of Omaha” turns 94 in less than four months.
Here are some of the big topics shareholders want Buffett to discuss:
Inflation: Price pressures have proved sticky lately. What impact is inflation having on Berkshire’s businesses? Which businesses are being hurt (and helped) the most?
Apple: Why did Berkshire trim its Apple stake in the fourth quarter? Investors will look for Buffett’s outlook on the tech stock given its challenges in China and recent news of a giant, $110-billion stock buyback.
Secret stock pick: Berkshire has been buying a financial stock for two quarters straight. What is it?
Record cash: Does Buffett plan to put his record level of cash to work?
A slowdown in buybacks: With Berkshire shares outperforming this year, will Buffett continue to slow down his own buyback program?
Life after Buffett: More details on Berkshire’s succession plan.
Macro commentary
The annual meeting comes at a tricky time for markets as a pickup in inflation puts the brakes on the Federal Reserve’s plan to cut interest rates this year. While the Berkshire CEO doesn’t make investment decisions based on daily headlines, investors still are eager to hear any market commentary and guidance from the protege of the father of value investing, Ben Graham.
“They don’t time their investments,” Kass said of Berkshire. “The economy goes through cycles. They totally ignore cycles. They invest for a long run, and they really ignore what pretty much what the Federal Reserve is doing. I believe that will be his answer.”
Apple
Shareholders may seek an explanation as to why Berkshire sold about 10 million Apple shares (1% of its massive stake) in the fourth quarter. At the end of 2023, Berkshire owned 905,560,000 shares of the iPhone maker, worth more than $174 billion and taking up more than 40% of the portfolio.
The move came as a surprise to many because Apple has been Buffett’s favorite stock for years, and he even called the tech giant his second-most important business after Berkshire’s cluster of insurers. What’s more, the last time Buffett trimmed this bet, he admitted it was “probably a mistake.’
In the third and fourth quarters of 2023, Berkshire requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission keep the details of one or more of its stock holdings confidential. Many speculated that the secret purchase could be a bank stock as the conglomerate’s cost basis for “banks, insurance, and finance” equity holdings jumped by around $2.37 billion.
“He will comment as late as possible…. Charlie would be the only one that would let it slip once in a while. It’s not going to happen with Warren,” Check said.
Succession
Berkshire’s succession could be front and center at this meeting after Munger’s passing. Abel, became known as Buffett’s heir apparent in 2021 after Munger inadvertently made the revelation.
Abel has been overseeing a major portion of Berkshire’s sprawling empire, including energy, railroad and retail. Buffett revealed previously that Abel’s taken on most of the responsibilities at Berkshire.
Still, some questions remain as to who will be helping allocate capital at Berkshire, and the roles of Buffett’s investing managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who is also the CEO of Geico.
Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday: Petco Health — The retailer slumped 22% after losing 4 cents per share in the fiscal first quarter, twice the 2-cent loss that analysts had estimated, based on FactSet data. Revenue of $1.49 billion missed the Street’s $1.50 billion consensus, while same-store sales dropped 1.3%, worse than the 0.6% decline forecast by analysts. Tesla — The EV maker added more than 6%, a day after plunging 14% as CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump publicly feuded . Broadcom — Shares of the chipmaker dipped 2.7% on lackluster free cash flow for the second quarter. Broadcom reported free cash flow of $6.41 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for $6.98 billion. Still, several analysts covering the stock raised their price targets. ABM Industries — Shares fell 11% after the facilities management company reported mixed results for its second quarter. Its adjusted earnings of 86 per share was in line with expectations, while its revenue of $2.11 billion topped the FactSet consensus estimate of $2.06 billion. ABM Industries also reiterated its earnings guidance for the year. Circle Internet Group — The stablecoin company popped 38%, following its Thursday debut on the New York Stock Exchange. Circle soared 168% in its first day of trading . Lululemon — The athleisure company pulled back 20% after its second-quarter outlook missed analyst estimates. CFO Meghan Frank also said on a call that Lululemon plans on taking “strategic price increases, looking item by item across our assortment” to mitigate the impact of higher tariffs. G-III Apparel Group — The apparel company tumbled 15% on much weaker-than-expected earnings guidance for the second quarter. The company sees earnings per share in a range of 2 cents to 12 cents. Analysts had estimated earnings of around 48 cents per share, according to FactSet. DocuSign — The electronic signature stock plunged 19% after the company cut its full-year billings forecast. Billings for the fiscal first quarter also came in lower than expected. Braze — Shares of the customer engagement platforms provider fell 13% on disappointing guidance. Braze guided for second-quarter adjusted earnings of 2 to 3 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet called for 9 cents per share. Its first-quarter results beat estimates. Quanex Building Products — The maker of windows and doors and other construction materials soared 18%, the most since September, after earning an adjusted 60 cents per share in its fiscal second quarter versus analysts’ consensus estimate of 47 cents, on revenue of $452 million against the Street’s $439 million, FactSet data showed. Adjusted EBITDA also topped forecasts. Samsara — Shares shed 5% after the software company projected revenue growth to slow. Samsara guided for second-quarter revenue to increase between $371 million and $373 million, up from the $367 million in the first quarter. That would be a slowdown on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. Solaris Energy Infrastructure — The oil and natural gas equipment and service provider rallied 10% after Barclays initiated research coverage with an overweight rating and $42 price target. “Solaris is the leader in distributed power with almost 2 GW of capacity to be added by 2027 with 67% allocated towards data centers on long term contracts,” the bank said.
A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images
The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.
The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.
“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.
The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.
“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.
‘Too big to fail’
UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.
The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.
Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.
At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.
Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.
“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement.
“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”
The prospect of stringent Swiss capital rules and UBS’ extensive U.S. presence through its core global wealth management division comes as White House trade tariffs already weigh on the bank’s fortunes. In a dramatic twist, the bank lost its crown as continental Europe’s most valuable lender by market capitalization to Spanish giant Santander in mid-April.
Check out the companies making the biggest moves in premarket trading: Tesla —The EV maker added nearly 5%, a day after plunging 14% as CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump publicly feuded . Broadcom — Shares of the chipmaker slipped about 2% before the opening bell, on the heels of lackluster free cash flow in the second quarter. Broadcom reported free cash flow of $6.41 billion, while analysts surveyed by FactSet were looking for $6.98 billion. Broadcom stock has risen more than 12% year to date. Circle Internet Group — The stablecoin company popped nearly 14%, following its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday. Circle soared 168% in its first day of trading . Lululemon — Stock in the athleisure company pulled back nearly 20% after its second-quarter outlook missed analyst estimates. Lululemon forecast earnings per share in the current quarter in the range of $2.85 to $2.90 per share, while analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $3.29. The firm also slashed its earnings outlook for the full year. DocuSign — The electronic signature stock plunged 19%. Despite beating Wall Street expectations on both lines for the first quarter, billings came in lower than anticipated, per FactSet. DocuSign also set current-quarter guidance for billings that was below analysts’ consensus forecast. Braze — Shares of the customer engagement platforms provider fell 6% following the company’s disappointing guidance. Braze guided for second-quarter adjusted earnings between 2 cents and 3 cents per share, while analysts polled by FactSet called for 9 cents per share. Its first-quarter results beat estimates. Samsara — Shares shed 12% after the software company projected revenue growth to slow. Samsara guided for second-quarter revenue to increase between $371 million and $373 million, up from the $367 million in the first quarter. That would be a slowdown on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. Rubrik — The stock gained about 4% following the cloud data management company’s top and bottom line beats for its first quarter. Rubrik lost an adjusted 15 cents per share, narrower than the 32 cent loss expected from analysts polled by FactSet. Revenue was $278.5 million, versus the $260.4 million consensus estimate. —CNBC’s Alex Harring and Brian Evans contributed reporting.
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