Warren Buffett says Greg Abel will make Berkshire Hathaway investing decisions when he's gone

all right the next question comes from slavin VAB brat um as CEO will Mr AEL be in charge of the portfolio of Common Stocks that Mr Buffett has been managing or will this function be exercised by Mr comes and Mr wesler yeah as investing could be defined as the discipline of relative selection can major Capital allocation decisions such as large Acquisitions be separated from the common stock selection process yeah I would say that decision actually will be made when I'm not around and uh I may try and come back and haunt them if they do it differently then but I'm not sure the Ouija board I they will get that job done so that job I'll I'll never know the answer on whether get covered but I feel very comfortable about the fact that it will be made by uh a board that they've got loads of brain power they got a dedication to a to a unusual institution uh and uh they they will figure things out but I would I would say that if I were on that board uh and were making a decision I would probably knowing Greg uh I would I I would just leave uh I would leave the capital allocation to to Greg and uh uh uh he understands businesses extremely well and if you understand businesses you understand you understand Common Stocks I mean if if you really know how business works you are uh you are an investment manager what how much you manage maybe just your own funds or maybe other people and if you really are primarily interested in in getting assets under management which is where the money is you know you don't really have to understand that sort of thing but but that's not the case with Ted or Todd obviously but I think the responsibility ought to be entirely uh with Greg uh the responsibility with has been with me and I farmed out some of it and I used to think differently about how that would be hand but I I think the responsibility should be that of the CEO and whatever that CEO decides may be helpful in in in effectuating that responsibility uh you know that that's that's up to the Amber herd decide at the time they're running the money but uh uh so I would say that my thinking on that has has developed to some extent as the sum have growing so large at Berard uh and we do not want to try and have uh you know 200 people around that are managing a billion each it just doesn't work uh and uh uh I think that when you're handling the sums that we will have you've got to think very strategically about how to do very big things uh and I think Greg is capable of doing that I think I've missed a lot of stuff in the past uh so I'm actually wiser about doing that now uh but I I uh you know I would do it better this time around in 2008 and9 if something akin to that happened but uh it won't be exactly like 2008 or n you can be sure of that but you also can say that there will be times when uh having huge sums available extremely quickly maybe it'll be once every 5 years maybe probably be more like once every 10 years or something but the way as the world gets more sophisticated complicated and and intertwined uh more can go wrong and uh uh and there's no sense going through here exploring the possibilities of the different things that could happen but you we do want to be able to act when it happens and I think the chief executive should some be somebody that can weigh buying businesses buying stocks doing all kinds of things that might come up at a time when nobody else is willing to uh move it wasn't that people didn't have money in 2008 it's it's that they were they were paralyzed and uh and we did have the advantage of having some capital and and a willingness to uh an eagerness even to act uh and a government that that in effect looked at as as us as an asset instead of a liability and I think that all of those qualities will be even more important uh as our Capital pile grows and so I think uh Greg may have have even more fun than I had uh in in a period when uh extraordinary things were happening and and we were the logical place to go um it uh you never know whether it'll be next week next year next decade but you won't be you know me it won't be a century from now that is for sure uh and uh uh the more intertwined and sophisticated the world financial situation gets the more vulnerable it gets in a certain sense it it solves a lot of small problems but it leaves it more vulnerable to large problems Greg does that bother you at all or not with without uh directly answering the question I think think there's one important thing is I think as we go through any transition it's important to know that the capital allocation principles that Berkshire lives by today will continue to survive warrant and I think that's what the thing I'd want to communicate that we'll we have our operating businesses Insurance non Insurance we're going to cap that we'll provide them the capital necessary to be successful and grow if it's appropriate um at the same time expecting a return of capital from them when they have exess cash and then as we've discussed or you've touched on uh always looking at potentially new businesses as a whole or in a piece and as you've always highlighted and I fully agree it's a we're we'll always look at equities as we're investing in a business either 1% or 100% but we're looking at the business we're looking at the economic prospects of that business and how sustainable it is and what it will look like 10 years from now and is our the capital we originally put in at exponential risk or or where where's that risk sit that profile and then of course um and then we'll obviously have our our our our continue to always put excess cash in the safest investment there is in in US treasuries knowing we want to maintain that Fortress of a balance sheet for two reasons one to act but also to always protect our shareholders if we have a we want to maintain the position Berkshire is in now uh realistically for the to ensure uh to ured injures well when he says that it makes me wish I'd stayed around to be number two instead of number one in this process over the years it it's it's uh you know it it doesn't get more fun than what we what we're doing and and uh and we're better positioned than ever before we're not positioned though however to earn it extraordinary Returns versus what American Business generally earns I'm it uh as I'm you know I would I would hope we could be slightly better but nobody's going to be dramatically better in some in you know over the next Century it gets very hard to it gets very hard to predict who the winner will be and and if you look back as we did in a few meetings ago as the the top 20 companies in the world at at 10e intervals uh you realize the game isn't quite as easy as as it looks but getting a decent result actually is reasonably should be reasonably easy if you just don't get talked out of doing what has works in the past and don't get carried away with fads and don't don't listen to people have different interests in in uh mine than the the interest of our shalders

Channel: CNBC Television

Views: 62,846

Keywords: 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting, Berkshire, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Omaha

Id: BBXh2IveLm8

Length: 9min 36sec (576 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024