Morningstar’s Metrics for Berkshire Hathaway
- Class A Share Fair Value Estimate: $730,500.00
- Class B Share Fair Value Estimate: $487.00
- Morningstar Rating: ★★
- Morningstar Economic Moat Rating: Narrow
- Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: Low
What We Thought of Berkshire Hathaway‘s Annual Meeting
While narrow-moat-rated Berkshire Hathaway’s BRK.A / BRK.B annual meeting has always been entertaining, it has not always been a huge source of meaningful insight. While this year’s event had the feel of past meetings - the setting was the same, throngs of shareholders were present, and the company’s top managers were onstage taking questions from CNBC’s Becky Quick and shareholders during the meeting- there was a big shocker in CEO Warren Buffett’s announcement that he would be recommending to Berkshire’s board of directors that Greg Abel take the reins at the end of this year.
While we had not anticipated this announcement as we went into the meeting, we had noted in our report “Ten Questions We Think Should Be Asked at the Company’s 2025 Annual Meeting” that we were asking far more succession-related questions than we had in past years, adding that perhaps that was a sign we were getting closer to the endgame for Buffett’s time with the firm. Following the November 2023 death of Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s vice chairman for four and a half decades and Buffett’s longtime confidant, we’ve heightened our focus on succession planning at the firm, not just from a personnel perspective, but also when thinking about capital allocation.
Summing up our key takeaways from this year’s meeting, we would highlight the following: Buffett’s retirement announcement was a shocker to not only investors, but also board members and even Abel himself; Abel’s ability to be both investor and operator will now be scrutinized even more; Berkshire’s expanding cash hoard will become a bigger topic of conversation with the change of management happening at the end of the year; the insurance business has come down to earth some even though Geico continues to improve; and, the company’s shares remain slightly overvalued with Buffett even shutting down share repurchases during the past year.
