OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) – Following are comments by Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chief Executive Warren Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger at the conglomerate’s annual meeting of shareholders in Omaha on Saturday.
ON Q1 EARNINGS
“In general, all of our companies, with the exception of the ones in the residential construction business which was the case last year and the case this year … all of the companies except that area have shown good earnings.”
“Everything good happened at Geico in the first quarter.”
“Overall, we feel good about the first quarter, we feel good about the year.”
ON RISK AND SUCCESSION
“I do believe that the CEO of any large, particularly financial …. company should be the chief risk officer.”
“We would not select anyone for that job that we did not think had that ability.”
“We’re not going to have an arts major in charge of Berkshire.”
ON THE POWER TO MAKE DEAL’S IN BUFFETT’S ABSENCE
“Berkshire will possess that subsequent to my departure. I don’t think that every deal that I made would necessarily be makeable by a successor, but they’ll bring other talents as well.”
ON SWISS RE
“There is ability to reprice that business as we go along, but the degree to which we and Swiss Re might want to reprice that may be a point of controversy”
ON SHARE BUYBACKS
“If we could have our way we’d have the stock trade once a year and Charlie (vice chairman) and I would try to come up with an intrinsic business value.”
“The 1.1 (times book value) is a figure we feel very comfortable with, we would probably feel comfortable with a figure somewhat higher than that.”
ON ENERGY COSTS
“If you told Charlie or me five years ago that you’d have a 50-to-1 ratio between oil and natural gas I think we would have asked you what you were drinking.”
Vice Chairman Charlie Munger on U.S. natural gas reserves: “(The) most precious thing we could leave our descendants.”
ON GEICO MOVING INTO TELEMATICS LIKE PEERS
“I don’t see in this new experiment anything that threatens Geico in any way.”
“Our marketing is working extremely well and our risk selection is working extremely well.”
ON BUSINESS SCHOOL EDUCATIONS:
“I think they’ve taught students a lot of nonsense about investments.”
Munger: “I think business school education is improving.”
Buffett: “Is the implication from a low base?”
Munger: “Yes.”
(Reporting By Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Bernard Orr)
