Hi everyone, this is CNBC's Becky Quick in Omaha, Nebraska, and you are listening to part three of our full coverage of the 2026 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting. We pick up here with the second session of questions and answers hosted by Berkshire's new CEO, Greg Abel. With him on stage was Katie Farmer, CEO of the BNSF Railroad, and Adam Johnson, CEO of NetJets and new president of Berkshire's Consumer Products Service and Retailing Businesses.
Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the break. Becky, Warren, thank you for that exceptional interview. Appreciate that. 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.
Okay, thanks Greg. This question comes from Chris Frerieded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, "How has the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East impacted Berkshire subsidiaries?"
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. You know, 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?
Yeah, it's interesting and Warren has said this in the past before. You know, the railroad is a really good reflection of what's happening in the industrial and the consumer economies because our loadings really cut across all the various commodities. You know, we touch agricultural products, we touch coal, the industrial commodities like cement and steel and aggregates. You know, certainly our intermodal business which is such a big part of our business reflects what's going on with the consumer. And so we're seeing the impact from the conflict in the Middle East in a couple of different ways. First of all, I would say that if you look across our various commodities, it's created an opportunity for some of those commodities just because of the disruption in the supply chain. In addition to that, you know, we see commodities like aggregates and steel, things like that that are favorable and we're seeing an increase in those. But then some of the commodity areas that use energy in the manufacturing of those commodities are certainly being impacted by the increasing fuel prices. The largest segment of our business, as I mentioned, is intermodal. And so as fuel prices increase, our intermodal business becomes more competitive. And so we're seeing an increase there relative to what's happening in the Middle East. I would say in general though as we think about it if fuel prices stay too high for too long it has an impact on consumer demand and when that happens that cuts across all of our businesses.
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?
Yeah, we're seeing some, we are starting to see that impact some of the businesses. I would also say Greg as we talk to some of our large intermodal customers what they are telling us some of the big retailers are the customers are having to make choices now. So as fuel prices go up they make choices about what they're buying. And so that's where I get back to if it is a prolonged higher fuel price environment, I do believe that we will see that customer impact across our businesses.
Thank you, Adam. Across your businesses, what are you seeing? What are you feeling?
Yeah, I mean certainly, you know, when you see the increases that have occurred and the instant spikes in some cases that occurred certainly on the consumer product side, on the retail side, it has affected some of the demand on that side. I would also tell you that we have also faced multiple times at NetJets with $100 a barrel pricing. We see those spikes. We see the demand. Haven't seen it on the NetJets side. We went from really the last two years from about $5.40 a gallon. We're seeing spikes up to $7 a gallon. I would tell you if I see that kind of sitting at $7.40, $7.50 a gallon then you'll see it start impacting even in the higher end side on the NetJets side. So we're feeling it. It's not the first time we've had to deal with this. You know, we're prepared to deal with those things and make adjustments where we need to, but this certainly is affecting, I would say, some of the retail businesses and some of the consumer product businesses.
Great. Thank you, Adam, and thank you, Becky, for the question. We'll now move to station five.
Good afternoon, Mjab Singh from MountainHouse, California. Warren has spoken very highly of both you, Greg and Katie. So, I'm grateful to have you both leading our company. And I'd like to ask each of you a question. Greg, as you know, the Berkshire system relies on decentralization. Each manager runs their own subsidiary. As CEO, which operating units do you think need more oversight and how will you handle a manager who underperforms? And Katie, as Greg highlighted, the BNSF's profitability lags its competitors. With eventual technology advancements and autonomous driving, trucking costs will continue to drop. How will BNSF maintain its competitive advantage from competitors and new technology?
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 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.
Absolutely. So, thank you for the question and as I said, we absolutely know that it's critically important that we continue to drive an efficient operation, that we continue to have a competitive cost structure, and that we continue to close the gap with our competitor relative to our profitability. There's a couple of specific things that we're working on and it's really about operationalizing the improvement that we saw in 2025 into the first quarter of 2026 and making sure that we're really institutionalizing that. So the first thing that we really focused on in 2025 was we knew that we needed to improve our single car operational efficiency. And when I say single car unit operational efficiency, we run a couple of different networks. We run our intermodal network. We run our agricultural and our coal network, our bulk networks. And then the balance of it is what we call our carload network or our single car network. And that's where we have non-unit train. It takes a lot of operational focus. It takes a lot of work effort and it consumes a lot of resources. And so anything you do to improve that single car network is good for all of your customers. It frees up resources. It creates capacity. It allows you to handle the same amount of volume if not more with fewer assets. And that translates through then to the improvement that you're seeing in the profitability. An example of that is in the first quarter of this year, we handled more volume than we did in the first quarter of last year, but we did it with 260 fewer locomotives. That translates into a more consistent service product for our customers and it also translates into better financial results, which is what you saw in the first quarter of 2026. So we're spending a lot of time ensuring that we have operational excellence not in just all those other networks but in the network that frees up resources and drives improvement and operational excellence for all of our customers. The second area and you heard Greg talk about this earlier was around our technological transformation. We really believe that in addition to driving that operational discipline that you saw in 2025 and into 2026 that working with the new BNSF tech organization to drive that next step level of improvement. And so you saw units dwell in our terminals less time that translated through to the financial results that I talked about. You saw velocity improve as well. And so how do we leverage technology then to take the next step level improvement? So I'm excited about what we're doing there. We're literally attracting data scientists, operations research folks, and we're putting them alongside of our operators in our network operations center. We're looking at things like digital twins, which gives us the opportunity to model how we run the railroad before we actually run the railroad. We're looking at opportunities to do predictive ETAs for our customers, which allows our customers to have a better product. It allows us to turn the assets faster. And then last, what I would say is that we're just it's good old-fashioned going to work on attacking the largest structural cost buckets. We had a record for the first quarter in our fuel efficiency. That's the kind of thing we want to do because it makes us competitive with trucks. It is good for the environment and it's good for our financials. So those are the things we're doing to close the gap relative to profitability. Now your question about competing with trucks. I would say a couple of things with that. First of all, we have the largest intermodal franchise of all of the railroads. We have a unique relationship with JB Hunt and we have been extremely successful in converting over the road freight. We've done more of that than anybody. So, we know how to compete with trucks. But your question about technology is a good one. And I would say that we in the past have invested in a system called positive train control, which is a safety overlay that allows us to operate the railroad efficiently. As you know, we operate in a closed circuit. And so we have the ability to your point ultimately to run the train with fewer people than we operate with today. And in fact, if you go way back in time, we used to operate the trains with five people on the train. Now we're down to two people on most of our trains. So the technology will continue just like most industries will continue to evolve and we're continuing to look at that as well. The last point I would say with that though is that we also have to be allowed to innovate and so we need regulation that supports the ability for railroads to be able to compete with trucks. As you said, we know that there are trucks out there running today in our state in Texas along I-45. We just there was just a pilot with autonomous trucks. What we have to be able to do is to be able to compete with that and to be able to innovate. And so we're going to need regulations that allow the railroads to be able to do that. So that's how I think about competing, ensuring that we're closing the gap as well as maintaining our competitive advantage with trucks.
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 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.
Yeah. Well, I one I will tell you you know the one of the I came back on June 1st of 2015 and that Monday afternoon and many of the team that's up here today we got in a room and I asked a question about how many people really understand sort of the bookends of our business. NetJets is complicated. We're ad hoc. We're unscheduled. We fly to thousands of airports. Commercial airlines will fly to 50 to 100 airports. We fly to 150 countries around so it's a very complicated business and I asked the question to the team how many people do you think really understand the bookends of our business and I didn't like the answer I won't tell you what the answer was but it was too few and it sort of started there and what we did was we really said you know to build this culture the way we want it if I understand what you're doing you understand what I'm doing at deeper and wider levels we're going to do good things together so it sort of started on that Monday afternoon and when we started building that back. I will tell you it was also a reinforcement from probably from Greg. I remember my first board meeting prep and I was excited and we were starting to kind of move and I was talking about growth and we're going to get this right. We're going to grow and Greg pulled me aside in a very kind way and he said, "Why don't you pay $1 back to Warren and work on getting your debt down?" That was a teaching lesson. I took that to heart. I heard it clearly. I actually already knew that. And so we just started really putting our blinders on and we said safety and service, safety and service. Warren bought NetJets after becoming a customer in 1995. Bought NetJets in 1998 and he did a video for us that we still use. And he said, "I want safety and I want service." And we've been really focused on making sure everybody stays in that alleyway. That in large part plus a lot of hard work is why we're able to pay our debt back. We're able to pay cash back to Berkshire Hathaway and move our way, as I said in the video, out of the other column and be first in the service business and I'm proud of that.
Great. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Katie. Becky.
Okay, this comes from Brian Simpkins in San Diego, California. The question is, has Berkshire Hathaway considered seeking any tariff relief or reimbursement programs for its wholly-owned operating businesses exposed to import costs? And how significant is that impact across the portfolio?
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 it's 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 tears from through 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 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 that 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?
Not as far as the reimbursement, but I would say just as far as the impact of the tariffs and what we're seeing with our customers. I would say that in early 2025, we saw several of our customers pulling forward shipments in advance of the tariffs. And we certainly saw our volumes ramp up at the beginning of 2025 because people were trying to get ahead of the implementation of the tariffs. So we did see an increase in volumes through early 2025. That really stabilized then in the back part of 2025 and then into 2026. I would say that our customers have really adapted to the tariffs and adjusted to the tariffs. With that said, it does cause some uncertainty and I think where we see that really showing up is, you know, it's very difficult for our customers from a planning perspective and I think it's keeping some capital on the sidelines as far as investment in manufacturing facilities and it's just really the uncertainty of the tariffs that really is what we're seeing reflected with our customers.
Thank you, Adam. Yeah, I mean I would echo both those points. One I would probably use Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, Jeff Rachor who is an excellent CEO of that division, his new and used sales are slightly down in Q1 of this year compared to last year and part of that is this is sort of that same effect from the tariffing that occurred a year ago to today. I had to smile because we were collecting okay it's just it's changed every day as we know and you managed through that and just understanding the tariff bouncing ball was, you know, a job in itself. But I had to smile because I was actually calling our CEOs just to get their take on it. And the 32 companies in the portfolio, consumer product, services, and retail, it's a stat that I love. They've actually been around on average 88 years. And only 0.5% of American businesses have been around more than 80 years. Our average in that sector from a founding standpoint is 88 years. And several of the five of the companies specifically companies that were founded in the 1800s and when I called those CEOs they said we've been dealing with tariffs for 100 years you know kind of thing and so not being dismissive at all of tariffs the point is I look at the whole tariff conversation as you're always going to have a curveball. I think of the CEOs in the last seven eight years we've had to deal with a global pandemic the highest inflation four years and now this thing the bouncing ball of tariffs. So, the businesses have done an excellent job of managing through that. I wouldn't put it in the fun department of the things we have to deal with, but we're learning it and I think we're in a pretty decent spot moving forward.
Thank you, Adam. We'll move to station six.
Good afternoon. My name is Amir Rahani from Vancouver, Canada. Thank you for hosting us and thanks to everyone at headquarters that makes this weekend possible. Berkshire's investments in the five Japanese trading houses was passive. Good businesses at good prices financed by GPN. Your Tokyo Marine deal is fundamentally different. A 10-year joint M&A and reinsurance partnership. That's a level of operational integration Berkshire has never done internationally. What does that look like in practice? And does it signal a broader shift toward active international partnerships under your leadership? And to put you on the spot, Greg, Canada versus USA and hockey, who are you cheering for? Sorry.
Now I'm in trouble. Yeah, Ajit did an exceptional job of discussing Tokyo 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 Tokyo 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 great deal of faith there. We 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 Tokyo 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. 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. So a little selfish in finding that type of outcome.
I will say Greg and I had an Oilers Stars bet last year.
And we the losing person had to wear the jersey of the other and I now own Oilers gear.
Yeah. Katie owns some Oilers jersey and unfortunately this year neither of us got that. They're both on the sidelines very quickly, but thank you for that question. Becky.
This question comes from a shareholder who didn't want to be identified, but it's a variation of a question that I got from several shareholders. Is there any future circumstance that you could envision Berkshire divesting businesses or being broken up? If so, what are those circumstances?
The shareholder also writes, note, I don't want this to happen, but it's commonly discussed among followers of the company.
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 risk 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 a couple things or 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 bundle 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, at least from my perspective, and how we'll continue to do it. I would say we're taking the obligation and making sure capital is properly deployed obviously very seriously. I touched on the regulatory compact in energy and that has to exist. And 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 were 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.
Greg, there's the second part of that question though that gets at is there a point where the sum of the parts or something, is there a point where it doesn't make sense for Berkshire to be a conglomerate where you would break up the company?
Yeah. So, to the second part of the question, absolutely not. We 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 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 generate, 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're happy to, not happy but we understand the logical home right now is US Treasuries. We think that's a good asset, we prefer to see that deployed but 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.
