Berkshire’s 2026 annual shareholder meeting: Watch the full afternoon session

Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the break. Becky Quick, thank you for that exceptional interview. Appreciate that.

Katie and Adam, great to have you on stage. I would note both the videos were extremely well done in that it gives us a great understanding of your businesses but also you as leaders. And I'm just going to start with a question for each of you, and then we'll go back to the question and answer.

I think Katie, you well, I know you did, you heard me speaking earlier. I talked to our owners and shareholders around our operating performance and where we are. Highlighted we were in fifth or sixth last year. We've now moved to fourth and we need to see, we also talked about needing significant improvement, a step change. But the one thing I didn't really touch on is I started talking about getting to that next level. But as you touched on, you have 35,000 employees and to move the organization to look externally and recognize where do we go? How do you take on that challenge?

Thank you, Katie. And then Adam, when I was discussing your new role and thank you for taking on that role and also retaining your role at NetJets as the CEO there. So, a lot on your plate and all of us here appreciate that. But it's early going. You've been in the role since December as the president of consumer products and then service and retailing. What are your observations as your early observations across the 32 companies and how are you approaching that?

Great. Well, we're very fortunate to have Katie and Adam in these leadership roles. Again, it was very purposeful to have them on stage. We want them to have the opportunity to engage with our owners, our shareholders, and we really do look forward to the questions. So, thank you for joining us on stage again.

Becky again. Great to have you back. Thank you for that interview and if you'd like to start. Thank you.

Sure. I'll touch on it and then I'll make sure because it impacts really in a variety of ways all our businesses, but what I'm most proud of are our businesses. We operate these businesses for the long run just like we do for obviously for our shareholders. We take a long-term approach there. There's not many days and I used to joke when I more had Adam's role. There wasn't a day I woke up where the phone wasn't ringing with good news. Yeah, that phone rang. You knew you're going to have a bit of a challenge and we have that portfolio, but that's okay. We'd be talking and we always worked our way through it. And we have a team that would lean in and we'd come through and it could be anything. And we never tried to use that as a reason we couldn't do something or get to the right place.

And what I've seen associated with obviously the war in Iran and the various conflicts in the Middle East is again a team that is very much taking the approach that that's the situation we're in. We can manage our business and we very much quickly move to what's the best solution for our customers. How can we deliver and continue to deliver what we've done to them and what's their expectations around that and our teams will work incredibly hard to come up with solutions. I touched on LSBI, the drag reduction agent on the pipeline company. They don't usually sell a lot of product into the Middle East as far as moving. It's more a domestic-based product for Canada and the US. When you think of a drag reduction agent on pipelines, literally being cargo planes of that chemical being moved in the Middle East to help free up supply and i.e. remove some of that constraint. So there's so many things that go on when they start trying to figure out how to solve the challenge.

Now what I would say is it doesn't mean there's not immediate impacts to our businesses. If you think of companies in America around the globe, petroleum and natural gas matter is such a fundamental input to so many products. And the reality is if you think I touched on our chemical group, their input is generally a petroleum product and the output is the various products they produce. Obviously that are byproducts of that, but their input costs have effectively doubled in a very short period of time.

But again, we'll manage through that and that's the beauty of being part of Berkshire. They know first we'll take care of our customer. We'll find the right answer. We'll manage the challenges and the value creation will be there in the end. So there's some short-term pressure on our chemical businesses. If you looked at their first quarter profits individually, they would be down because or flat to down because they've got some challenges. For example, on the input side, but they're delivering what the customer needs and that rebalances over a period of time where our prices will move up pursuant to our contracts. We'll be treated fairly in the end in that they'll reset and then may unwind a little bit slower. But the point is, unfortunate situation and we've got men of service and women of service over there and putting themselves at risk and that in itself is scary because a lot of our employees have family involved. But you know as far as running our businesses, it's really heads down. We'll get through this and we'll keep operating everything for the long run. And again, it includes how we'll operate our assets. We're not going to put the asset at risk to try to get to a short-term outcome because petroleum prices are higher. It's very much continuing to take that long-term perspective.

Katie, obviously it can impact demand and what's being brought in on the coast. Are you seeing that or what else are your observations?

And have you started to see that yet? That obviously when you think of I touched on it being an input to many of our companies but really globally it's an input to so many things and as that price pressure moves up obviously the demand side is challenged. Are you seeing that yet?

Thank you, Adam. Across your businesses, what are you seeing? What are you feeling?

Great. Thank you, Adam, and thank you, Becky, for the question. We'll now move to station five.

Great. Thank you. So, associated with the letter I wrote to all of you as owners, I highlighted some important values. One of them was our decentralized model. I also touched on risk discipline, capital allocation. And when we think of our businesses, we have an exceptional group of leaders in businesses. And yes, they do own their businesses as Katie touched on it in her video, as Adam's alluded to it and talked about it. There is a great deal of ownership across each of our subsidiaries and that's absolutely how we'll continue to operate and see it as an extremely effective model that they're closest to their customers. They understand what needs to be done and if they think like an owner we get very good outcomes across the group of companies.

I would highlight though that with a decentralized model we do not take responsibility and I was one of those, I ran BHE, it's a great set of responsibilities where Berkshire Hathaway Energy, shouldn't be abbreviating, sorry, but when I ran it that autonomy meant you embraced it and there was a great amount of accountability that came with it and sheer pride that you wanted to do things right. We've got a clear set of when we talk about integrity and how I started it, we have a lot of expectations and that's where both on the integrity how they approach managing their business and servicing their customers and I've said there's a lot of external factors we can observe but our primary engagement is with their are they managing the risk and risk and foremost do they see themselves as that chief risk officer you've heard us discuss many times are they good allocators of capital with the capital they have there because even capital you have to manage your operating expense as well I view everything you know that when we're spending money on a it may be a capital expenditure it can be an operating expenditure you're deploying our shareholders capital are we doing that well and we focus on that so that's part of that equation of allocation.

And the reality is if we're seeing a situation where we're underperforming or we're seeing some potentially poor decisions, that's where we engage and have a discussion. And usually it's relative and I touched a bit on this with Katie, it's relative to what we see externally and just really trying to understand where our performance gaps are and then it quickly moves to how and we don't have the people at corporate to go in and quote help. So, it's not like we send in an army, but there's generally some people within our subsidiaries or maybe someone we know that could help them with that performance gap because we do treasure continuous improvement and strongly as you've heard believe in operational excellence and there's as I've said there's room for us to get better and that's how we would approach the situations where we see the gap and need to close it. Katie, maybe you can probably touch on both.

Thank you, Katie. Adam on that point and Katie's point, you know, you came literally Adam had left for a very brief stint 10 years ago and had a very senior role in NetJets and had been effectively been recruited to be a CEO of another business that was going public and we were fortunate enough to convince Adam to come back but he came back to a challenging situation. The asset was underperforming. We had billions of dollars of debt like I back to ourselves to the parent company but it was debt that had been incurred and some real challenges. When you think about how we address underperformance and how do we get a business back on track? Maybe you just want to touch on that period of time and bringing the business back and how you achieved that.

Great. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Katie.

Let me start with the impact across our portfolio because it's very close to discussing the situation in the Middle East in that yes, there were the tariffs and each business may have fallen under a different tariff or what they were importing. And we'd gone through it once already in the first term of the administration and there were lessons learned there. So we were both better prepared in how to manage through it and had realigned a certain amount of our input. So that was valuable. The second thing was, as I described with the conflict, it was heads down and we'll just manage ourselves through it. You know, listen, there's some cost pressures here. We'll figure out how we're going to continue to serve the customer. We'll work through on delivering what they need. And there has to be some reasonable expectations on the other side that we'd recover those tariffs either through a direct contract with them or through the product we're creating. And that was a good approach in that we just held our course and wanted to continue to service them. So yes, there is financial impacts but our team did a really remarkable job of addressing it and really minimizing the impact to any of our businesses. As far as recovering it, that would definitely be at our operating level they would be making such a decision. But overall right now our perspective has been there's a lot to sort out when it comes to refunds, what we're eligible for. And so at this point in time, we're very much taking an approach that if it's appropriate, our teams will evaluate it and again, it'll be a discussion with our customers and with a number of them. So it's an operating subsidiary decision, but we're not naive to it and we're encouraging them. There's a lot to be sorted out at this moment in time and we're not pursuing them. That doesn't mean we may not have a subsidiary and I'll look to our team on stage here that may be pursuing one or seeking one. Katie, anything on that?

Now I'm in trouble. Yeah, Ajit did an exceptional job of discussing Tokio Marine and I'll touch on it, but what and I teed it up a bit in saying it is a strategic relationship less than a financial transaction. Yes, we like the 2.5% investment into Tokio Marine and that will be a long-term investment. It's the type of investment we put with our other five investments in Japan. We really think of those as forever because it goes beyond the investment and it's very much around the relationships we want to build there and you'll continue to see that. Ajit expanded on the underwriting opportunity that we do jointly participate in their risk and rewards associated with effectively also 2.5% of their book there now and that's again part of the financial transaction but there's also a great deal of faith there. As Ajit said, and really Ajit says and I take his word for that but it's an exceptional company and their performance has been remarkable. So we're thrilled to have them. And then the third thing that was touched on was the partnership highlighted a variety of things how we would like the relationship to develop and that's not defined yet. So we'll continue to let that take its proper form. They're the type of partner that has the same culture, same values as us. So there's little question it's going to be exceptional for many years to come. But as far as pursuing an absolute acquisition in insurance or something like that that'll evolve with time and that would be obviously the discussions Ajit and the senior team at Tokio Marine would be having and if such an opportunity materializes we'd be thrilled with it. Now to the really tough question, Canada versus US in hockey. I did find a way and it can cause a lot of angst in my own family. So, I remember waking up that morning and Canada was playing the men, but I'd already decided a little bit earlier that when it came to the Canadian men versus the US men, Connor McDavid plays for Edmonton. And therefore, I was going to cheer because being from Edmonton, I would cheer for the Canadian men's team. And I've always followed the US women and I love what a program the US hockey and I love USA hockey and how they approach the coaching and the development of the youth and I think they've done a great job there. So I chose to cheer for the US women and it was the perfect outcome for me and so little selfish in finding that type of outcome.

Yes. True. And the losing person had to wear the jersey of the other and I now own Oilers gear.

Thank you for that question. Becky,

Yes. So when we think of the question and I think it's a good one because we've always highlighted there's certain circumstances that we may not be the best owner of a business. We've touched on if there's labor issues that we cannot resolve. I would take it to the point then further in my letter I touched on if there's reputational risks that we're not willing to ever have our owners or shareholders or Berkshire experience and that we have to maybe the business has evolved the customers have evolved but if there's that type of situation then that company does not belong in the Berkshire family and it may be a fine business that can be owned by someone else, but it may mean we don't own it. I would then take it a little bit further. I touched on one other thing before I jump to that would be we've often talked that if we have a business that is unsustainable and no longer generating operating cash for our shareholders, we have to make some serious decisions around that. If there's someone else who could operate it and make it be more successful both for the customer and for our employees then we have to consider that otherwise that business is unfortunately in a place where we can't just fund it and experience losses. We would wind it down over a period of time but we'd look for a better solution for our customers and employees. So that's always been the case from my perspective and how we'll continue to do it. I would say we take the obligation and making sure capital's properly deployed obviously very seriously. I touched on the regulatory compact at energy and that has to exist and we have to be if we have capital deployed there we have to get a fair return. We have a situation where we've actually announced we're selling a portion of PacifiCorp, our Washington state utility. And that's really a function of the fact that we have a multi-state process in PacifiCorp. There's six different states and each customer is impacted in different ways. And I've already said we very much focus on what's the needs of each state and how can we best service them. And unfortunately we are in a situation in Washington where they clearly had policy that they wanted from PacifiCorp. And it was having a significant impact on the costs of our other states. And as much as we would have liked to seen what we call a multi-state compact, i.e. how do they balance all that? It wasn't occurring and our other states were bearing costs that they felt were not theirs that were being imposed by another state. So we consciously said this isn't working for the six states and the one state who had very specific policies and wanted them implemented, we chose to exit. We found a very good purchaser who very much supported and could implement what was required at that state. So there we have evolved and it's a situation where it just didn't make sense for Berkshire to be an owner of that asset or our owners to be an owner of that asset and it'll be I believe a better outcome for the state and for their customers. So there are those situations where we would divest and we will always approach things that when we buy something it's forever. When we acquire a utility we tell the regulators it's forever. But it has to be a relationship that works and if it's broken we'll find a better path both for the company, the employees, customers and obviously for Berkshire.

Yeah. So, to the second part of the question, absolutely not. I touched on it early. We are a conglomerate. But we are an efficient conglomerate. We don't have layers of management. We don't have a bunch of committees telling our businesses how to run, how they're going to manage their customer relationships. We try to at the odd time create frameworks so there's value shared across the businesses so they're aware of what our other businesses are doing and technologies. That's one of them. We like our framework now. We think it's become very effective across three of our businesses. So of course we want them to understand it but we don't create layers. I remember when Adam took on the role I nicely said there'll be no corporate group supporting you either in Omaha or amongst your own team. He's got folks in NetJets and they always step up and take more responsibility including when I was in that role or in the vice chairman role. So the one thing we don't do is create layers of bureaucracy or other decision trees around it. And I think so many conglomerates end up with layers and layers of costs that don't add value to the overall corporation. I'm even careful when I talk about our metals group and our chemicals group because they're a group in my vision, i.e. I see similar opportunities. I want them to work together but they don't have a corporate group on top of them or anybody directing them on what to do. They find ways to work together because they can have the same challenges, can have the same customers. So we see our conglomerate structure working without the bureaucracy and bloated costs. We see a great opportunity to continue to move capital across those different groups in a very tax-efficient way. Other people can't say I want to move capital. BNSF's a great example. Yes, they have strong operating results and they're in a cycle in their business cycle right now where there's a certain amount of capital we have to deploy into it but we also receive substantial dividends from BNSF on an annual basis. We can take that capital and decide is it needed in a different operating business or do we see opportunities in equities and if we don't see those opportunities we understand the logical home right now is US treasuries. We think that's a good asset we would prefer to see that deployed in a different fashion yes when the opportunity presents itself but it allows us to really move that capital across the group. So I actually, the answer to the conglomerate is yes, we understand we're one. We see it operates very effectively and we do not see ourselves divesting of subsidiaries for that reason or ever breaking off a group.

Thank you. So, I think I'll start with the important part of that question. I mean, as far as how Warren thought about it, how Berkshire thought around approaching investments, our margin of safety around investments and how we approach it. We're absolutely aligned there and that starts with our culture and values and how we've approached everything over the years. So if I go back to looking at opportunities in energy and it may have been an acquisition or we're deploying significant capital, it quickly went to yes, we understood the opportunity, but Warren and I'd want to have this conversation, where's the risk and do we really understand the risk associated with this. And I have a really great example is that we were acquiring NV Energy and had the opportunity to acquire it and Warren was actually coming back from China and had been over there and I was waiting for him to arrive and land in Seattle and give him an update that we had this potential opportunity and I very much knew the opportunity and what the value proposition was. I clearly had three significant risks in my mind that I was anxious to discuss with Warren and Warren landed and I had a short presentation, said I'm asking him to just give me a call. It was literally one page, but just to really trigger it, could we have this conversation? And the immediate conversation we had was, yeah, the economics, you couldn't agree more, understood them, went right to the biggest risk. And I was just getting ready to walk him through the two or three risks I'd seen and wanted to make sure we understood it and were comfortable, wanted his input. And the risk was fundamentally rooftop solar and how would it disrupt that business and disrupt our customer. We discussed it. We understood it was a challenge. I remember saying to Warren, well, that's part of the reason I'm sure we have this opportunity to acquire this public company that there is a certain amount of risk in the public and the board and the management team had decided that they didn't see the same opportunity we did. But Warren went right to it. It was all around the risk and that risk did surface 12 months later, 18 months. We managed our way through it. Our team did a great job. But so I don't see there being incremental margins or we think of risk differently. We think of them in the Berkshire mindset that we're going to understand the economic prospects of this opportunity. And as I said, we really go to that 10-year window potentially and say what's the business look like 10 years from now? And is there enough safety margin 10 years from now? Is what we see the outcome, do we see an outcome and if we don't understand what that looks like 10 years from now, I know Warren would say this, I would say it, then we don't do it. There's no safety margin or maybe we can adjust some numbers or there'll be synergies or something of that like. We have to have a vision of what that's going to feel like and look like and that really is how we approach it. Now touching on technology companies. We are not going to ever say, geez, this is a specific sector for us or we need to be in it. If there's something in the technology sector or in that group of companies and we understand one of those companies to understand again what their opportunities are and what we view as the economic prospects for it and we have an understanding of what those risks are. That doesn't preclude us just because it's in a technology sector or that but it would start with back to the fundamentals of do we understand it, both the opportunities and the risks and then is it fairly valued relative to that and that's always going to be the approach. So thank you for your excellent question.

Now, Becky, if this is okay. We're going to and so please pick your toughest question, but we're beyond 1:00 now. This will be our last question for today. So, we look forward to it and then I'll have some conclusionary thoughts and comments. But thank you, Becky.

And there they're a reason why they're in the rafters together. That was an incredible partnership and one that you can't replicate. But what I would start with is that very fortunate to still have Warren as our chairman and that's very important and it makes for an excellent transition. Have an exceptional board of directors that I'm comfortable reaching out to any of them individually depending on the circumstances and either the risk we're dealing with or an opportunity that may be present in any of our businesses or one that may be coming our way. So, we're fortunate to have that exceptional group in place. And then it really comes back to our team that's in place. And I said this when I was answering Warren from Omaha that we want Berkshire to endure and that means yes I want to lead Berkshire and I'll be a strong leader. I strongly believe that and I'll take Berkshire forward. But it will be as you always need a single leader and I think we strongly understand that. But you surround yourself with great people and they're already here. I've been fortunate on the non-insurance operation to operate with Adam's 32 and the 18 that I still get to interact with a lot. Those 50 including Adam and Katie obviously have an exceptional working relationship with Ajit and fortunate with that and would seek counsel regularly. Even as vice chairmans we would constantly have a conversation around he may be making an insurance decision or I was making a decision around one of our non-operating businesses and the first thing we'd cross check is how's it impact your group. So have an amazing relationship and someone I immensely value the input. And then across our CEOs we're so fortunate to have a great group that I would reach out to any of them on a specific circumstance and ask them for their input and I generally know where they've dealt with a challenge or a significant opportunity and I'd be the first to seek it out and say let's talk about it and figure out our path forward. And it may be that it was someone on their team that really dealt with it and then I'd want to be talking to their team. So, fortunately, because of Berkshire and the way we're created, again, it is a unique structure, but we have an immense amount of resources around us. And then we have our team in Omaha who has supported Warren for all those years. They're remarkable folks. There's not a lot of them, but they are good and they're exceptional and we're fortunate to have them as part of the team. So it will be such that Berkshire endures and will endure as a team but clearly with leadership. So thank you Becky that last question.

So, as we wrap up today, obviously, I can't help but thank everyone for joining us this morning and early afternoon, both as our long-term shareholders or those that are our newer shareholders and all of you that came for the experience. It's greatly appreciated. We enjoy this engagement. It all comes together because there's an individual Warren has highlighted in the past pulls together the exhibit hall, pulls together everything here. I'd like to acknowledge her, Melissa Shapiro. Thank you. And then the light was over on that table. But we do have and we made this announcement in December. Our longstanding CFO Mark Hamburg is retiring in June of this year. We're very fortunate that then he will stay on for an incremental year as an adviser to our incoming CFO as a personal friend adviser to myself. We'll have Mark's knowledge resource and it's immense when it comes to Berkshire. Mark has been our CFO for 34 years. It's not this June, the following June when he truly retires, it'll be 40 years with Berkshire. And it's been such an incredible career and he wears so many hats in this organization. I mean he's helping Melissa, Melissa's organizing and doing all but when she has a question she went to Mark to look for the answer around the annual meeting. He's our corporate secretary. I like to say and to replace Mark we hired a CFO but we also hired a general counsel. It took two to replace him and more than that. So Mark, thank you for your incredible contributions to Berkshire. Warren has highlighted those and I can only echo all that. Thank you so much. Now, lastly, again, thank you for this remarkable experience for all of us at Berkshire. We treasure what we call Owner's Day, that opportunity to communicate around what's going on in Berkshire because we're so proud of it, absolutely committed to it and passionately believe in Berkshire, but equally the engagement of all you throughout the day yesterday into this afternoon just greatly appreciated. Thank you and look forward to seeing you next May. Thank you.