Every year during the conference, numerous companies and institutions organize forums, networking dinners, and visits. Some notable events include the Asia Investors Summit, the China-U.S. Venture Capital Summit, the Value Investing Dinner hosted by Columbia Business School (the birthplace of value investing and Buffett's alma mater), welcome events by the Omaha Chamber of Commerce and the Nebraska state government, dinners hosted by tech companies like $Microsoft(MSFT)$ , cocktail parties organized by Chinese and American media such as $TENCENT(00700)$ , sina, and Yahoo Finance, the value investing conference hosted by Peking University alumni and Chinese financier Charlie Tian, and investment seminars organized by large institutional investors, securities firms, and insurance companies. (Value Investing Dialogue hosted by Swiss-American value investing master Guy Spier and Indian value investing master Mohnish Pabrai in Omaha)
Given the overwhelming number of activities, it is advisable to select a few to attend and engage with investors from around the world. The headquarters or regional headquarters of companies such as Gallup, $PayPal(PYPL)$ , and TD Ameritrade are located in Omaha and can be arranged for visits.
2025 Buffett's 60th Anniversary Diamond Shareholders' Meeting Guide
@KevinChenNYC：
(See You in Omaha During the May Day Holiday) This year marks the 60th anniversary of Buffett's acquisition of Berkshire Hathaway, which should be an extremely significant annual meeting. A marriage of 60 years is referred to as a "diamond wedding," a level higher than the 50th-anniversary "golden wedding." The vast majority of corporate management teams are unlikely to successfully manage a company for several decades. Therefore, the annual $Berkshire Hathaway(BRK.A)$ $Berkshire Hathaway(BRK.B)$ shareholders' meeting in 2025 should be the ultimate feast for global value investors. This year's meeting will, as in previous years, be held on the first Saturday in May (May 3) in Omaha, a midwestern U.S. city. Each year, more than 50,000 people from around the world attend this meeting (for more information on the attendees, please refer to the author's article "Who Attends the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders' Meeting?"). Coinciding with the May Day holiday, in recent years, thousands of participants from China have attended the meeting each year. I believe that this year, the number of Chinese participants from around the world will set a new record high. Based on our years of experience attending the meeting and combining it with the invitation letter to shareholders recently released by Mr. Buffett, this article summarizes some tips for attending the meeting. 01 One Week Before the Shareholders' Meeting The author recommends that all friends planning to attend the Buffett shareholders' meeting arrive in Omaha a few days early. Omaha is a relatively small city. Flights on and around the day of the meeting are very expensive, and there are few direct flights from the Midwest to other countries. Considering the need for layovers and time differences, arriving two or three days early (for example, on April 30 or May 1) to familiarize yourself with the environment in Omaha is an excellent choice. Of course, more importantly, there are many pre-meeting events in Omaha during the week before the shareholders' meeting that are worth attending. For example, Buffett's undergraduate alma mater is the University of Nebraska. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Nebraska College of Business for over twenty years. Every year, during the week before the shareholders' meeting, the University of Nebraska offers a special one-week course on value investing. Many top figures in the global value investing field will come to give lectures. Interested friends can register to attend. The University of Nebraska also has a deep relationship with China. The founder of the university's computer science department is Professor Shi Yong, a world-renowned scientist. Professors Sun Di and Li Yong, as well as the author, run the Omaha Value Investing Center, which holds the China-U.S. Investment Summit on the campus of the University of Nebraska every year. Our company, Huisheng Financial, will also continue to be one of the supporting institutions for this summit. (2019 China-U.S. Value Investing Summit held at the University of Nebraska: Dr. Li Yong, Professor Sun Di, the author, and Professor Shi Yong, photo: Kevin Chen) (Omaha Value Investing Center/China-U.S. Investment Summit 2023 Dinner, photo source: Kevin Chen) 02 The Main Event: The Shareholders' Meeting The annual shareholders' meeting is held at the CHI Health Center Omaha (CHI Health Center). The address is 455 N. 10th Street, Omaha, NE 68102. This convention center is located near the downtown area of Omaha, about a 20-minute drive from the Omaha airport. It is very convenient with many parking lots nearby. The meeting opens its doors at 8 a.m. on Saturday (May 3), but many die-hard Buffett fans will camp out in front of the entrance on Friday night to rush in and secure the best seats when the doors open. In recent years, with the development of the sharing economy, some apps have started to offer paid queuing services for a night in front of the Berkshire meeting venue. There is a free simple breakfast and coffee inside the venue, and many fast-food restaurants are available for lunch. There are various types of tickets with priority access, including those for shareholders, executives, and media representatives. Buffett, who earned money by delivering newspapers as a child, will lead everyone in a paper airplane contest on the Friday afternoon before the meeting. Many people will also take the opportunity to take photos with him. It is recommended that attendees visit the main exhibition hall in the afternoon of May 2 to wander around and possibly catch a glimpse of Buffett. In recent years, he has been known to tour the venue in a golf cart. Of course, other executives from Berkshire-related companies, such as Apple CEO Tim Cook, may also be seen taking a walk in the venue on Friday afternoon, offering investors a chance to meet them unexpectedly. (Photo of Buffett at the venue on the Friday afternoon before the shareholders' meeting: Kevin Chen) In the past, the meeting usually started with a short film at 8:30 a.m., telling the story of Berkshire over the past year, with cameos from sports stars, singers, actors, and comedic interactions with Buffett, Munger, Bill Gates, and other prominent figures. This year, Buffett announced that there will be no short film. Instead, the meeting will begin at 8 a.m. with a report from the company's management on its operations, lasting for about an hour and a half. Following that, journalists from media outlets such as CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and Fortune will ask questions based on issues submitted by shareholders. Berkshire executives and board members, including Bill Gates, will answer questions as appropriate. There will be a 30-minute lunch break, after which attendees can line up to ask questions on a wide range of topics, from investments to elections, education, and healthy eating. I was fortunate enough to ask Buffett a question about his international investment strategy. This year's meeting is expected to end around 2 p.m., an hour earlier than in previous years. In recent years, with the increasing number of Chinese investors, a separate room has been set up to provide simultaneous Chinese translation. I once met an investor from Iceland who was very envious of this, saying that due to the small population of Iceland, there is no special translation service for Icelandic. It is regrettable that Mr. Munger passed away 33 days before his 100th birthday in late 2023. I believe Mr. Buffett will surely express his remembrance for his old comrade-in-arms of over 60 years, Mr. Munger, at the venue. The friends around Buffett are truly outstanding. In 2024, the wife of his old friend Gottesman announced a donation of $1 billion to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, making all students at the medical school permanently tuition-free. This $1 billion, the largest single donation in human history, is actually the profit earned by the Gottesman couple from their investment in Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway over the past forty years! 03 Company Exhibitions Berkshire Hathaway owns and invests in hundreds of companies, many of which take this opportunity to interact with attendees. On the first floor of the meeting venue, there is an exhibition hall featuring displays of consumer products ranging from Coca-Cola to Brooks running shoes, Berkshire underwear, Dairy Queen ice cream, and more. The commemorative running shoes (3D printed and made on-site) and commemorative T-shirts of the annual meeting are limited editions and are usually sold out in the morning of the meeting day. Every time I go to Omaha, I buy a box of gifts; there are just too many good things to purchase. So if you want to buy something nice, do it early! You can also see booths from Berkshire's subsidiaries, such as the aircraft engine manufacturer, the railway company BNSF, the private jet company Netjet, and the drilling platform manufacturer. Since the Omaha airport is not far from the convention center, interested friends can line up to take a bus to the airport to experience a flight on one of Berkshire's private jets. Berkshire Hathaway has a total of 193 wholly-owned subsidiaries. The executives of these companies, along with the leaders of many publicly traded companies in which Berkshire has invested and the heads of many institutional investors who have invested in Berkshire, will all be present to interact with everyone. It can be said that this is a super social gathering! Since Buffett enjoys reading, there is a bookstore in the exhibition center every year, selling many books on investment. Some books that are not available in bookstores, such as biographies about Buffett's Brazilian partners 3G, can be purchased here. Friends who are interested in investment-related books can take this opportunity to buy many classic value investment books that may not be readily available on the market. Mr. Buffett has already announced in advance that a 60th-anniversary special edition of Berkshire will be released this year, with a limited edition of 5,000 copies. The first 20 people to purchase will receive his autographed inscription, and the proceeds will be donated to a charity in Omaha.
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