Pandemic forces Buffett to cancel massive annual shareholder weekend
WARREN Buffett has said the coronavirus pandemic forced him to cancel Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder weekend, the largest gathering in corporate America, because safety of participants and wider community was paramount.
The weekend, which Berkshire’s billionaire chairman calls ‘Woodstock for Capitalists’ and attracts more than 40,000 people, had been scheduled for May 1-3 in several locations across Omaha, Nebraska, where Berkshire is based.
Buffett said “events have moved very fast” since he discussed the weekend in his February 22 shareholder letter.
Berkshire’s annual meeting will still be live-streamed on May 2 on Yahoo Finance, but shareholders cannot physically attend and surrounding events have been cancelled.
“Large gatherings can pose a health threat to the participants and the greater community,” Buffett said. “We won’t ask this of our employees and we won’t expose Omaha to the possibility of becoming a ‘hot spot’ in the current pandemic.”
Buffett’s hand was forced after the World Health Organisation declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, countries and cities worldwide curbed large gatherings of people, and many other companies cancelled events or moved them online.
The formal annual meeting lasts about 15 minutes, and has been preceded by five hours during which Buffett (89) and Berkshire vice-chairman Charlie Munger (96) answer shareholder questions. Buffett said they may still field some questions.
Health experts consider elderly people the most at risk of dying from the coronavirus.
Berkshire’s weekend has long been a high point for Buffett, who routinely mingles with shareholders and fans, often with a horde of media nearby. Events this year were expected to include a cocktail reception filling an entire shopping mall, a 5km run, and shopping discounts which provide Berkshire with millions of dollars of revenue.
Only about a dozen people attended Berkshire’s annual meeting in 1965, the year Buffett took over the company.
Attendance surged after Berkshire in 1996 introduced Class B shares, now worth 1/1500th of Class A shares, enabling many more people to make pilgrimages to Omaha. By 2015, there were 42,000 attendees helping Buffett celebrate his 50th anniversary at the helm.
Buffett expressed hope the weekend will return in 2021.
“Charlie and I will miss you, but we will see many thousands of you next year,” he told shareholders.