The highlight of the American financial year is the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, in the great American mid-west.
Each May thousands upon thousands of people gather there for what amounts to a festival whose centrepiece is an annual meeting that can go for hours, with a suitable break for lunch.
No tea and biscuits and a furtive chat with the shareholders before fleeing in a smoked glass limo to an expensive eatery or back to corporate HQ for Buffett, Charlie Munger and others.
It’s been called ‘Woodstock for Capitalism’ and quite a few Australians travel there each year for the experience as much as anything else.
It’s Mid-west folksy, it’s very American and quite a few modern business people would scoff at it but it will draw the best part of 25,000 to 30,000 shareholders from the US and many other countries.
Read this carefully, especially the events surrounding it such as furniture and jewellery sales and special meal deals: many of these businesses are owned by Berkshire Hathaway and the money shareholders spend pays for the whole event and more.
Simple, but obviously something too hard for many of our businessmen in Australia and many elsewhere.
In fact you can imagine some of the types at Macquarie Bank and other high flying investment and financial products companies looking askance at Buffett and Berkshire, or eyeing the annual report (http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2006ar/2006ar.pdf) and wondering about break up values, and completely missing the point about Buffett, the company and shareholders.
Here are details for this year’s outing.
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Our annual meeting this year will be held on Saturday, May 5th.
As always, the doors will open at the Qwest Center at 7 a.m., and a new Berkshire movie will be shown at 8:30. At 9:30 we will go directly to the question-and-answer period, which (with a break for lunch at the Qwest’s stands) will last until 3:00.
Then, after a short recess, Charlie and I will convene the annual meeting at 3:15. If you decide to leave during the day’s question periods, please do so while Charlie is talking.
The best reason to exit, of course is to shop. We will help you do that by filling the 194,300 square foot hall that adjoins the meeting area with the products of Berkshire subsidiaries.
Last year, the 24,000 people who came to the meeting did their part, and almost every location racked up record sales. But records are made to be broken, and I know you can do better.
This year we will again showcase a Clayton home (featuring Acme brick, Shaw carpet, JohnsManville insulation, MiTek fasteners, Carefree awnings and NFM furniture).
You will find that the home, priced at $139,900, delivers excellent value. Last year, a helper at the Qwest bought one of two homes on display well before we opened the doors to shareholders. Flanking the Clayton home on the exhibition floor this year will be an RV and pontoon boat from Forest River.
GEICO will have a booth staffed by a number of its top counselors from around the country, all of them ready to supply you with auto insurance quotes.
In most cases, GEICO will be able to give you a special shareholder discount (usually 8%). This special offer is permitted by 45 of the 50 jurisdictions in which we operate. (One supplemental point: The discount is not additive if you qualify for another, such as that given certain groups.) Bring the details of your existing insurance and check out whether we can save you money.
For at least 50% of you, I believe we can. And while you’re at it, sign up for the new GEICO credit card. It’s the one I now use (sparingly, of course).
On Saturday, at the Omaha airport, we will have the usual array of aircraft from NetJets available for your inspection. Stop by the NetJets booth at the Qwest to learn about viewing these planes.
Come to Omaha by bus; leave in your new plane. And take all the hair gel that you wish on board with you.
In the Bookworm’s corner of our bazaar, there will be about 25 books and DVDs – all discounted – led again by Poor Charlie’s Almanack. (One hapless soul last year asked Charlie what he should do if he didn’t enjoy the book. Back came a Mungerism: “No problem – just give it to someone more intelligent.”)
We’ve added a few titles this year. Among them are Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger by Peter Bevelin, a long-time Swedish shareholder of Berkshire, and Fred Schwed’s classic, Where are the Customers’ Yachts? This book was first published in 1940 and is now in its 4th edition. The funniest book ever written about investing, it lightly delivers many truly important messages on the subject.
At Nebraska Furniture Mart, located on a 77-acre site on 72nd Street between Dodge and Pacific, we will again be having “Berkshire Weekend” discount pricing. We initiated this special event at NFM ten years ago, and sales during the “Weekend” grew from $5.3 million in 1997 to $30 million in 2006. I get goose bumps just thinking about this volume.
To obtain the Berkshire discount, you must make your purchases between Thursday, May 3rd and Monday, May 7th inclusive, and also present your meeting credential.
The period’s special pricing will even apply to the products of several prestigious manufacturers that normally have ironclad rules against discounting but which, in the spirit of our shareholder weekend, have made an exception for you. We appreciate their cooperation.
NFM is having a special shareholder picnic featuring chicken and beef tacos (and hamburgers for traditionalists like me).
At a remodeled and expanded Borsheim’s, we will again have two shareholder-only events. The first will be a cocktail reception from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, May 4th. The second, the main gala, will be held on Sunday, May 6th, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
On Saturday, we
