Berkshire Hathaway(BRKB) CEO Warren Buffett heads to Los Angeles for the company's highly anticipated annual meeting this weekend.
The annual "Woodstock for Capitalists" will be online for a second year due to the pandemic. But it's the first time in more than 50 years it will be in a city other than Buffett's hometown of Omaha, Neb.
Thelivestreambegins 12:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Vice Chairman Charlie Munger will attend too, along with top lieutenants Ajit Jain and Greg Abel.
Berkshire Hathaway earnings for the first quarter are also due Saturday, revealing whether the conglomerate bought back more sharesafter a record $27.4 billion in repurchaseslast year.
Berkshire's aggressive share repurchases contrasts with the M&A deals spun by Buffett during and after the 2008 financial crash. It suggests that the latest downturn and recovery haven't offered the bargains that the investing legend typically pounces on.
As Buffett mostly sits on the deal-making sidelines, Berkshire's cash pile finished 2020 at $138.3 billion. While that's down from $145.7 billion in Q3, it's still a gain from $128 billion at the end of 2019.
Buffett In LA LA Land
With this cash pile in mind, his unusual decision to travel outside Omaha for the annual meeting also begs the question why Los Angeles. Hedge funds reportedly havetracked corporate jets for clues on imminent deals, including anOccidental Petroleum(OXY) plane that was spotted in Omaha before Buffett announced a $10 billion investment in the oil company.
Surely corporate executives in LA will seek an audience with the Oracle of Omaha while he is in town.
Top publicly traded companies in the area include media and entertainment giantDisney(DIS), homebuilderKB Home(KBH), construction services provideAECOM(ACM) and Snapchat parentSnap(SNAP).
But Buffett doesn't just invest in public companies, and one of the biggest private local ones is SpaceX, which is building a vast constellation of broadband satellites while becoming a major Pentagon and NASA contractor.
CFRA analyst Cathy Seifert declined to speculate about Buffett's motives in LA. But in an April 24 note, she wrote that she still sees acquisitions remaining part of Berkshire's capital allocation strategy.
To be sure, deal making may be far from his mind now as he has bemoaned "sky high" prices that set back his hopes for a big acquisition.
And in February,Buffett admitted that buying Precision Castparts for $37 billion in 2016 was a big mistake, citing its exposure to the hard-hit aviation and energy sectors. It forced an "ugly $11 billion write-down" that Buffett said reflected his error in paying too much for the business.