McKenna Covers The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

There are many ways journalists, investors, and Warren Buffett himself refer to the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, held in Omaha, Nebraska. These short-cuts and sobriquets add a larger-than-life aspect to what is typically, for almost any other public company, a rather perfunctory affair. Barring any significant controversy, expected or unexpected, no one that doesn't absolutely have to show up at an annual meeting usually makes the trip.

I had the good fortune to spend some time on Saturday with the New York Bureau Chief of The Economist Matthew Bishop. He's a UK native and co-author of the book "Philanthrocapitalism". This was also his first time at the "Woodstock for Capitalism." (That's what Warren Buffet calls the event in his Annual Letter to Shareholders but I think this "Buffettism" is oxymoronic.) Bishop told me that in the UK there used to be mush higher attendance at shareholder meetings, usually for the banks. This reliable audience consisted mainly of retirees because the companies served a lovely lunch in the City. When that stopped, most budget-minded pensioners no longer made the trip.

Every once and a while someone calls me a "gad-fly" with regard to audit industry reform. I don't much like that term because it makes a buzzing sound in my ears. When they also mention fabled shareholders' activist Evelyn Y. Davis in the same breath, I warm to the label.

Read this article in its entirety at the re: The Auditors, a blog by Francine McKenna.

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