Editor’s Note: Related tickers: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM)
Billionaire Warren Buffett, an admitted technophobe, joined Twitter on Thursday and quickly accumulated more than 100,000 followers. The Oracle of Omaha, who has never had a computer on his desk at his office and once admitted he didn’t know how to check his voicemail, sent his first tweet Thursday afternoon: With Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) +1.16% annual meeting set to take place this weekend, shareholders will have the opportunity to ask him plenty of questions. So, we asked readers what they would ask Buffett if they had the opportunity to pose a question. Topics ranged from Berkshire’s business model, to the state of the economy, Buffett’s investing ideas and even Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) +1.42% and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) -1.15% troubles.
Warren Buffett says economy still improving slowly (BostonHerald)
Investor Warren Buffett believes that the economy and the U.S. job market will continue to improve, but slowly. In an interview that aired Friday, Buffett said business has been creeping upward at his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) conglomerate. “The economy is improving, not at a rapid clip, but this country has done well since 2008 — certainly compared to the rest of the world,” Buffett said to CNBC. Buffett thinks it would be extraordinary if the Federal Reserve were to expand its bond-buying program beyond the current $85 billion a month level. The Fed said Wednesday that it would consider buying more if the economy needs help.
Warren Buffett says he won’t sell IBM shares (NDTV)
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) chairman and chief executive Warren Buffett said that he would not sell shares of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), even as the company missed earnings expectations last month. “I won’t be a seller of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM),” Buffett told a TV channel ahead of Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting, which will begin May 4 in Omaha, Nebraska. …Buffett added that he may buy more shares in International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM) “from time to time”, but that he neither bought nor sold shares after the company’s quarterly earnings miss. He said that he “may have added a little bit” to Berkshire’s stake in the company in the first quarter.
Warren Buffett says women key to US’s prosperity (ET)
Billionaire Warren Buffett is optimistic about America’s economic future because the nation has begun to unleash the potential of women. Buffett’s views on the role of women appeared online Thursday in an editorial he wrote for Fortune magazine. He says that most of America’s prosperity was created using only about 50 per cent of its talent, the men. So he’s confident the country will prosper as more women excel in the workforce. “For most of our history, women, whatever their abilities, have been relegated to the sidelines,” Buffett writes. “Only in recent years have we begun to correct that problem.”
Buffett Bets on Business Insurance Big With Ex-AIG Managers (SFGate)
Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A), is planning an expansion in commercial insurance after hiring four executives from American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG). “We would like to get into the commercial-insurance business very big time,” Buffett, 82, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu, before the company’s annual meeting this weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. “We hired them because they’re very good at the commercial insurance business.” Peter Eastwood, chief executive officer of American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG)’s property- casualty operation in the Americas, was among executives joining Berkshire, along with other managers with commercial-insurance experience. American International Group, Inc. (NYSE:AIG) named executives this week to fill some posts after the insurer’s shares dropped 3.3 percent on April 26, as the departures were reported.
Billionaire Warren Buffett says he doesn’t think investors should worry about his successor (WashingtonPost)
Warren Buffett says investors shouldn’t worry about his successor, just as he isn’t concerned about who will next lead the companies in which he invests billions of dollars. The 82-year-old chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A) talked about succession planning in interview on the Fox Business Network. Berkshire has billions invested in the stock of The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), and Buffett says he has no idea who the next CEOs will be. Buffett says Berkshire’s board knows who it would pick as CEO if he died tonight, but the top candidates could change over time. Buffett has no plans to retire.
Buffett backs JPMorgan chief’s dual roles (iOL)
Warren Buffett, who has said he personally owns shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), is backing the bank’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon as shareholders vote this month on whether to split his roles. “I’m 100 percent for Jamie,” Buffett told Bloomberg Television’s Betty Liu yesterday in Omaha, Nebraska. “I couldn’t think of a better chairman.” Calls for Dimon, 57, to relinquish the chairmanship have mounted since New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) disclosed risk-control lapses on derivatives bets last year that fueled more than $6.2 billion of losses. In March, the company’s board urged investors to vote against naming a separate chairman at the May 21 meeting, saying that Dimon’s dual role remains the “most effective leadership model.”
Buffett name going on Omaha cancer center (TheIndependent)
The Buffett name is going on a new cancer center being built in Omaha, thanks to a relative of billionaire Warren Buffett. If the University of Nebraska Regents agree on the name at their June meeting, the center will be called the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, owing to a donation by Pamela Buffett through her foundation. She is the widow of Warren Buffett’s first cousin Fred “Fritz” Buffett. He died in 1997 after fighting kidney cancer. The University of Nebraska Medical Center and The Nebraska Medical Center said Friday that the exact amount of the donation won’t be disclosed, but UNMC Chancellor Harold Maurer called it a “monumental gift” for the $370 million project. The center will include a 98-laboratory research tower.
