(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 remarked the liability determination applied not only to the 17 plaintiffs in that trial, but also to the entire class of other plaintiffs.

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 organization 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 remarked it is “sensitive to the profound losses experienced by members of our communities. There are no winners in wildfire; 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 expansion real estate commissions even though its HomeServices of America brokerage, on the other hand 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 mentioned 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 novel 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.

CNBC.com’s live web stream coverage begins at 9:15 AM ET with a pre-game show. The first Q&A is scheduled to start at 10:30 AM ET.

Buffett book adds Berkshire’s next chapter

A book that explores Berkshire Hathway through the eyes of the the public running its subsidiaries is getting an update that includes the company’s transition from Warren Buffett to updated 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 novel 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

Some links may require a subscription:

Bloomberg: Berkshire Sells First Yen Bond After Buffett Resigns as CEO

Barron’s on MSN: Warren Buffett is retired. His latest advice couldn’t be more timely for young investors.

CNBC Construct It: No longer CEO, Warren Buffett still goes into the office daily—what to do when a former boss now reports to you, work experts say

HIGHLIGHTS FROM CNBC’S BUFFETT ARCHIVE

‘It’s not a very complicated economic equation at Berkshire’ (2016)

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger explain why Berkshire’s system works.

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s not a very complicated economic equation at Berkshire.

The public 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 large 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 enterprise.

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 huge 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 funds, and we were constantly deploying it, and disbursed assets, and we were wising up as we went along. That’s a pretty positive system.

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s a — This also touches on aspects of investors.

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 excellent 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 superb 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 economy 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 noted 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 sector 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 economy 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.)

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