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Charles Munger
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Charlie Munger, vice president of Berkshire Hathaway, will not answer questions at the company’s annual shareholder meeting with Warren Buffett, as the coronavirus pandemic switches to the widely anticipated event.
Instead, it will be Greg Abel, Berkshire vice president of non-insurance operations, answering questions previously sent with Buffett. Abel was promoted to his post in 2018 and is believed to be a contender to succeed Buffett one day. At last year’s meeting, Abel answered some shareholder questions in a rare occurrence.
Buffett and Abel will be the only ones to physically attend the meeting, which is scheduled for Saturday. Others will have the option to stream it through Yahoo Finance.
For decades, Buffett and Munger answered questions from shareholders at the company’s annual meeting without sharing the stage. Those questions ranged from his thoughts on political issues to Berkshire’s investments along with the future of the company’s leadership.
The meeting has become a staple in the global business community over the years, attended by tens of thousands of people. The event is also known to some as “Woodstock for Capitalists”.
But investors are especially eager for this year’s meeting given Buffett’s silence during the coronavirus-induced sell-off on world markets.
These declines generally give large investors the opportunity to buy discounted stocks. Berkshire, for example, bought from Goldman Sachs and Bank of America during the financial crisis more than 10 years ago.
But Munger, 96, said earlier this month that he and Buffett are being more conservative this time.
“We are like the captain of a ship when the worst typhoon ever has come,” Munger told the Wall Street Journal on April 17. “We just want to get over the typhoon, and we prefer to get out of it with a lot of liquidity.”
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