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(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)
PacifiCorp court win could reduce wildfire damages by $1B or more
An Oregon Court of Appeals ruling this week accepted PacifiCorp's argument the judge in a 2023 trial mistakenly told jurors it could assume evidence it heard about wildfire damages suffered by 17 homeowners also applied to a class of thousands of other plaintiffs.
The appellate judges sent what's been called the James class action back to the trial court for reconsideration.
The 2023 jury found the Berkshire utility liable for negligently failing to shut down power lines during a powerful windstorm, contributing to four separate wildfires that caused significant property damage.
It said the liability determination applied not only to the 17 plaintiffs in that trial, but also to the entire class of other plaintiffs.
A NASA MODIS satellite image shows wildfires in Oregon, U.S. September 8, 2020. Picture taken September 8, 2020.
Maxar Technologies | via Reuters
In subsequent "mini-trials" to determine how much PacifiCorp would have to pay groups of plaintiffs, other juries have awarded them more than $1 billion in damages.
Those trials had been expected to continue for the next several years,
Plaintiffs in the class may have to start again and prove the company is liable for their specific damages, although this week's ruling could be appealed to the state's top court.
The appeals judges noted the class includes owners of more than 2,000 properties that were damaged by different fires separated by more than a hundred miles.
The AP reports a statement by the lead counsel for the plaintiffs is calling the ruling a "procedural setback" that didn't suggest "the jury got it wrong" when it found PacifiCorp liable.
"In fact, the Court rejected PacifiCorp's efforts to win this appeal on the merits. Instead, what the court addressed was a single jury instruction, charting several paths forward — including fixing that instruction and trying the case again."
In a news release, PacifiCorp said it is "sensitive to the profound losses experienced by members of our communities. There are no winners in wildfire; however, the Court's decision supports PacifiCorp's longstanding belief that this process was prejudicial and not appropriate for managing wildfire litigation."
The utility says it "remains open to resolving reasonable claims and will continue to defend against unsupported claims."
Berkshire subsidiary must face real estate commissions class action
Berkshire Hathaway Energy will face a proposed class action suit accusing it of conspiring to increase real estate commissions even though its HomeServices of America brokerage paid $250 million two years ago to settle the same claims, Reuters reports.
A federal judge in Missouri ruled against BHE's argument it was covered by the HomeServices settlement because the two are a "single enterprise" when it comes to antitrust litigation.
Buffett won't be on stage but he's still on the cover
The cover of Berkshire Hathaway's "Shareholders Guide" for its 2026 annual meeting on May 2 features drawings of both Chairman Warren Buffett and CEO Greg Abel.
While Buffett is prominent on the guide and on the badges shareholders will wear (as noted in a short news report by Omaha's WOWT-TV), he will be leaving the spotlight to Abel at the meeting's Q&A session.
Buffett has said he will be on the floor of Omaha's CHI Health Center arena with his fellow board members while Abel answers shareholder questions, as relayed by CNBC's Becky Quick.
In the first Q&A session, Abel will be joined by insurance chief Ajit Jain.
BNSF CEO Katie Farmer and Adam Johnson, CEO of NetJets and Berkshire's president of consumer products, service and retailing, a new position, will be on stage with Abel for the second Q&A.
It will be the first time executives at the subsidiary level will be included in an annual meeting Q&A.
The crowd reacts during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2025.
CNBC
Buffett book adds Berkshire's next chapter
A book that explores Berkshire Hathway through the eyes of the people running its subsidiaries is getting an update that includes the company's transition from Warren Buffett to new CEO Greg Abel.
"The Warren Buffett CEO: Secrets from the Berkshire Hathaway Managers, 25th Anniversary Edition" will be published by Wiley on April 28.
Author Robert P. Miles has also added four new chapters focusing on Berkshire's "insurance engine" that include profiles of three key executives, including a potential successor for Ajit Jain.
Miles has posted a video of him discussing the book in January for an audience of investment managers gathered in Switzerland, including a look at portfolio manager Ted Weschler.
BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET
HIGHLIGHTS FROM CNBC'S BUFFETT ARCHIVE
'It's not a very complicated economic equation at Berkshire' (2016)
WARREN BUFFETT: It's not a very complicated economic equation at Berkshire.
People didn't — for a long time, they didn't appreciate the value of float. We kept explaining it to them, and I think they probably do now.
The big thing, the goal, what Charlie and I think about, we want to add, every year, something to the normalized — you know, the normalized earning power per share of the company.
And we think we can do it because we should be able to do it. We have retained earnings to work with every year to get that job done.
Sometimes it doesn't look like we've accomplished much, and we haven't accomplished much.
And other years, we — something big happens, and we don't know ahead of time which year is going to be which...
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, there are very few companies that have ever been similarly advantaged.
In the whole history of Berkshire Hathaway, we've lived in a torrent of money, and we were constantly deploying it, and disbursed assets, and we were wising up as we went along. That's a pretty good system.
WARREN BUFFETT: It's a —
CHARLIE MUNGER: We're not going to change it.
WARREN BUFFETT: No. And it's allowed for a lot of mistakes. I mean, that's the interesting thing.
American business has been good enough that you don't have to be — you don't have to really be smart to get a decent result. And if you can bring a little bit of intellect, you know, then you should get a pretty good result.
CHARLIE MUNGER: What you've got to do is be aversive to the standard stupidities. You just keep those out. You don't have to be smart.
WARREN BUFFETT: Thank God.
CHARLIE MUNGER: Thank God, right.
BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
Four weeks
Twelve months
BRK.A stock price: $720,002.88
BRK.B stock price: $479.90
BRK.B P/E (TTM): 15.47
Berkshire market capitalization: $1,035,160,682,901
Berkshire Cash as of December 31: $373.3 billion (Down 2.2% from Sept. 30)
Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $369.0 billion (Up 4.1% from September 30)
Berkshire resumed stock repurchases on March 4, 2026, but has not said whether it made any additional buys after that date.
(All figures are as of the date of publication, unless otherwise indicated)
BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - Apr. 10, 2026
Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on November 14, 2025, except for:
- Mitsubishi, which is as of August 28, 2025
- Mitsui, which is as of September 30, 2025
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.
Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.
-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch
