By Jonathan Stempel
OMAHA, Nebraska, April 30 (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway shareholders making the pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska, for the conglomerate's annual shareholder weekend will find much that looks familiar.
Discount shopping. The 5K run. Tens of thousands of like-minded investors and Berkshire fans. It is by far the largest shareholder gathering in corporate America.
Warren Buffett will be there. But for the first time in 60 years, the spotlight will not be his.
The weekend is the first since
the Oracle of Omaha handed Berkshire's CEO reins to Greg Abel, who will lead Saturday's annual meeting. Buffett remains chairman and plans to listen from the audience.
While Abel draws praise for his management skills and commitment to Berkshire's culture, Berkshire shares have severely underperformed the S&P 500 since Buffett unexpectedly announced last year he was stepping aside. Berkshire is down 12%, while the index is up 25%.
"It was overpriced a year ago. It is not overpriced anymore," said Steve Check, a longtime Berkshire investor at Check Capital Management in Costa Mesa, California. "Overall, we're still big fans."
Based on reported financials, Berkshire trades at around 1.4 times book value, though Buffett favored intrinsic value when assessing whether to repurchase its own stock. Abel resumed buybacks in March, Berkshire's first since May 2024.
Berkshire has said little or nothing about how tariffs, higher oil prices and record-low consumer sentiment weigh on specific businesses.
Lawrence Cunningham, a University of Delaware law and governance professor who has written several books about Berkshire, said: "Some investors may want to see Greg prove himself in his job before they double down. I'm confident, but the market is expressing caution."
Berkshire had no comment for this article.
While many investors still travel long distances for Berkshire's weekend, fewer may go with Buffett no longer on stage.
In 2025, 95% of hotel rooms in Douglas County, Nebraska, were booked for the weekend, according to Visit Omaha. Hotels say reservations are down slightly this year, with fewer international visitors.
"You say, 'OK, what do you know about Omaha,' and the answer is 'Warren Buffett,'" said Ernie Goss, a professor and regional economist at Creighton University. "I can't think of another city Omaha's size that you can identify with one person."
CHALLENGES ABOUND
Buffett built Berkshire into an approximately $1.03 trillion conglomerate with dozens of businesses, including Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Clayton mobile homes, Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear, Pilot truck stops and Squishmallows plush toys.
Abel is considered more hands-on and less likely to forgive bouts of underperformance, but is committed to Berkshire's culture of letting managers work day-to-day without interference.
He faces many challenges. Perhaps none is larger than how to invest Berkshire's cash, which ended 2025 at about $373 billion.
"That will play a pivotal role in Berkshire's future," said Paul Lountzis, president of Lountzis Asset Management in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, who is attending his 34th Berkshire annual meeting. "A lot of Berkshire's businesses have a great degree of predictability. But with a $1 trillion market cap, it's big, and that makes it much harder to grow."
Though Berkshire in January paid $9.5 billion for Occidental Petroleum's chemicals business, it has not made a major acquisition in a decade, or paid a dividend since 1967.
Investors say that at least while Buffett is around, Berkshire can remain a buyer or lender of last resort, as when it injected $5 billion into Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis.
But growth in many businesses stagnated in 2025. Operating profit fell 6%, while revenue was essentially unchanged. Lountzis, whose largest investment is Berkshire, said Abel might consider selling smaller or lagging businesses.
Shareholders may also want more insight on Berkshire's approximately $300 billion stock portfolio, which includes Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola and five Japanese trading houses.
Despite lacking formal experience managing stocks, Abel now oversees 94% of the portfolio, inheriting much of what Todd Combs ran before he left in December for JPMorgan Chase. Ted Weschler, once thought in line to help run the entire portfolio, oversees 6%.
NEW PEOPLE, NEW FOCUS
This weekend, more than two dozen Berkshire businesses will hawk their products in the arena and convention center where the annual meeting takes place. Dairy Queen plans to serve nearly 26,300 ice cream bars. It usually sells out.
The meeting itself will be different.
Abel will spend an hour talking about Berkshire, a new feature. He will then spend 2-1/2 hours fielding shareholder questions, assisted by insurance chief Ajit Jain, BNSF chief Katie Farmer and Adam Johnson, who oversees Berkshire's consumer, services and retail businesses.
Buffett and late Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, who died in 2023, would spend five hours answering questions. Their interaction became legendary, as did their pithy assessments on the economy, markets and life itself. Similar divergences will likely be far fewer this year.
Last year, nearly 30,000 people traveled more than 60 miles (97 km) to see Buffett, excluding international visitors, Visit Omaha said, citing cellphone data.
"He's part of this city's DNA," said Jasmyn Goodwin, Visit Omaha's executive director.
Check predicted attendance could fall by half within a couple of years.
"People came to hear Warren and Charlie," he said. "They didn't really come to hear about Berkshire. And I expect Abel and the other executives to talk about Berkshire."
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Colin Barr and Rod Nickel)
