Berkshire’s cash pile hits $397.4 billion as profit more than doubles, but annual meeting attendance falls sharply without Warren Buffett as CEO

The folksy wisdom and jokes that were a staple of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting for decades when Warren Buffett was leading the show will be missing Saturday, but shareholders still started lining up at midnight outside a Nebraska arena to listen to new CEO Greg Abel. Attendance is down significantly this year with the arena only a little over half full as the meeting started. That’s much different from the past few years when more than 40,000 attended to listen to the 95-year-old Buffett and — before his death in 2023, Buffett’s longtime partner Charlie Munger was always part of the fun. Buffett gave up the CEO title in January, but he remains chairman and will be sitting with the rest of the Berkshire board on the floor to listen at the meeting. Saturday’s meeting began with a video tribute to Buffett filled with clips from the previous 60 years of annual meetings. The first clip showed the standing ovation Buffett received last year after he surprised shareholders by announcing that he would step down. Abel then announced the symbolic move of retiring jerseys with Buffett’s and Munger’s names on them that will hang in the rafters of the arena. Abel has been on stage next to the legendary investor at the annual meetings for several years, but this year is his first time running the show. Investors expect the conversation to focus more on how the dozens of companies Berkshire owns are doing. The conglomerate owns major insurers like Geico, several major utilities like Pacificorp, BNSF railroad and an assortment of manufacturers, retail and service businesses. Signs of the transition are peppered throughout the 200,000-square-foot exhibit hall where shareholders buy products from Berkshire companies. A caricature of Abel playing his favorite sport of hockey is front and center on commemorative boxes of See’s Candy with Buffett and Mrs. See in the background in hockey gear. At the Pilot Travel Center booth pictures of Abel and Buffett are plastered on the win