OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Berkshire Hathaway’s peculiarities were on display again this weekend with tens of thousands of people filling an arena to listen to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger talk business for hours at the conglomerate’s annual meeting.
The Omaha event features an adjoining 200,000-square-foot exhibit hall where Berkshire subsidiaries such as See’s Candy, Fruit of the Loom and Geico insurance sell their products as executives chat with shareholders.
For the first time, Saturday’s meeting was broadcast online on Yahoo Finance. The crowd is smaller than last year’s 50th anniversary meeting but still dwarfs any other corporate meeting. Buffett didn’t give an attendance estimate Saturday morning as he offered optimism about business and advice on investing.
Buffett told shareholders that some of the keys to successful investing is avoiding envy and costly fees. The investor said it’s important not to try and copy others who profited in a company’s initial public offering or claimed a lottery jackpot.
“You don’t want to get envious of somebody who bought an IPO or won a lottery. You have to do what makes sense to you,” Buffett said.