The 2026 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Pictures and a Special Situations Idea

The annual pilgrimage to Omaha this year for the 2026 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting was just as exciting for me as it had been in prior years despite Warren Buffett not taking the stage this year. I covered my thoughts about last year’s meeting in an article titled The End of Berkshire as We Know It. Overall attendance this year dipped to an estimated 25,000 people from 40,000 last year.

Greg Abel, who took the stage on his own for the first time after becoming CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, started by joking that he was worried that it would be just his family and the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway that would show up for this meeting. He was thankfully off by a factor of over 1,000.

Instead of writing a full article, I figured I would just add some context around pictures my podcast co-host Tamanna and I took during our time there. Towards the end of this article, I have also included a spin-off related special situations idea that a fund manager shared with me that I found quite fascinating and an interesting insider purchase of Berkshire Hathaway that trickled in while I was writing this article.

At a book signing event last Sunday that Vitaliy and Jonah Katsenelson had set up for my book The Event-Driven Edge in Investing along with several authors including Brett Gardner and Adam Mead.

With David Park and fellow Californian Dane Coyle in the background. When I first met David four years ago, Tilman Versch, who runs the Good Investing Group, told me that David was the “selfie guy” and I later discovered why.

With Horea Pascu at the Q&A with Tom Gayner that Tilman set up for a small group of investors. Considering Horea’s nearly two decades of experience in the music business in Romania, I got a chance to ask him about Reservoir Media (RSVR) where activist investor Irenic Capital is involved as well as Bill Ackman’s unusually complex bid for Universal Music Group.

After the Q&A with Tom Gayner of Markel Group (MKL) where he spoke about his philosophy on investing, underwriting discipline for insurance operations and a whole lot more.

With my Brazilian friend Tiago Guitián who I have communicated with online for well over a decade. I happened to run into him outside the ValueX BRK event organized by Guy Spier and it was good to finally see him in person.

Since Mohnish Pabrai crashed that last picture with Tiago, we figured we would give him full billing in the next one.

The Chicago Booth Alumni and Student dinner that Pratham Dear, Aeshang Shah and Daniela Ivanov invited me to was particularly fun and the conversations spirited. It was great to have a conversation with Danny Abodalo and Summer Wang as well as reconnect with Nick Stark. This is the second year I have had the distinct pleasure of hanging out with this group after Anand Sundaresan was kind enough to introduce me to them last year.

I really enjoyed the talk Meb Faber gave at the CFA Society of Nebraska dinner that J. Dennis Jean-Jacques invited me to. The talk inspired me to call our May Special Situations Newsletter “Party Like It’s 1999”. After the dinner, I did a short interview with Tencent News’ U.S. Bureau Chief Irene Zhang about my concerns with Greg Abel managing both the operating companies and the investments at Berkshire Hathaway.

The Capital Alliance dinner that Ken Majmudar set up gave me an opportunity to reconnect with Kyle Tushaus and get to know Bruce Weiller. Unfortunately we didn’t take any pictures at the dinner but this is a picture of Ken with Kyle and Jason Wallace from The Capital Alliance event the previous day.

The Bob Robotti and Fordham panel on Saturday afternoon was very good and the moderator Paul Johnson was just outstanding. The discussion was around how Berkshire will evolve under Greg Abel’s leadership and the panel, which included Chris Bloomstran and Curtis Jensen appeared generally optimistic. I got this picture with Bob Robotti but wish I had also gotten one with my friend Rich Howe and others on our table including Logan Shearer and Bijel Doshi.

The Berkshire Soiree by Matt Peterson on Thursday evening at the Omaha Press Club is another great way to kick off a trip to the Berkshire AGM. It was great to meet Rajeev Agarwal and several other friends there.

Special thanks to Gurkamal of MIT Investment Management Company for inviting me to coffee with Maria, Jackson, Bijel, Elizabeth and Madison.

The Special Situations Idea

We kicked off our week in Omaha with a welcome party that Tilman had set up for his Good Investing Group and an Ideas Breakfast the next morning. I go to Berkshire just as much for these events where I get to meet fellow investors and come away with investment ideas worth exploring.

One of the investment ideas I mentioned earlier came from Tom Cosper of Avanto Partners where he shared an idea about Hong Kong listed company Plover Bay Technologies Limited (HKEX: 1523). Plover Bay Technologies is the parent of a fascinating company called Peplink, which makes routers that “bond” different internet connections. I wondered if it was similar to failovers where for example if you lose your Comcast connection, it will automatically switch to your secondary AT&T fiber connection.

Tom clarified that Peplink was instead focused on combining various connections to deliver better speed and bandwidth. They worked with cruise ships to bond multiple Starlink connections to create a better experience for passengers. Tom mentioned that the company is now working directly with SpaceX and Tesla and is considering spinning off its U.S. operations. The stock trades at a low multiple of earnings in Hong Kong and a U.S. listing on the NASDAQ could drive multiple expansion in addition to unlocking value.

My investments in foreign markets are mostly through ETFs and so I have not done any due diligence on this company since getting back from Omaha. If their plans for a U.S. listing solidify, I will take a closer look at the company.

Insider Purchase at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B)

We don’t normally see insider purchases at Berkshire Hathaway and the last time we saw one was when Greg Abel was buying Class A shares in well timed transactions in September 2022 as you can see below. After putting together this article, while reviewing Form 4 filings like we do every night, we noticed an insider purchase by the new General Counsel of Berkshire Hathaway Michael O’Sullivan last night. He purchased 536 Class B shares on the open market at an average price of $467.44 for a total of $250,545.

He started his role of General Counsel at Berkshire on January 1st, a day after Buffett stepped down from the CEO role. He practiced law at Munger Tolles & Olson for 21 years and then spent eight years at Snap (SNAP), another company where Irenic is involved as an activist. We covered Irenic’s involvement with Snap on a podcast episode with Dr. Paul Nary.

Buffett was known to be against hiring a General Counsel for Berkshire and this move is another sign of how Greg Abel plans to do things differently.

Looking forward to the next pilgrimage in Omaha.

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