Speaking at an annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Neb., Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s BRK.A, +1.10% BRK.B, +1.24% Warren Buffett on Saturday said that the possibility of malfeasance at one of his companies, or within Berkshire, has been one of his biggest dreads.
“It is the one thing that always worries me about my job,” Buffett said. The investor’s comments come in response to questions about Berkshire’s stake in Wells Fargo & Co. WFC, +0.72% which has seen its reputation badly tarnished amid a fake-account scandal that ultimately led to the departure of ex-CEO Tim Sloan, who had replaced John Stumpf back in 2016
Buffett has been supportive of Sloan and said that he was treated like a “Tim Sloan was a piñata, basically.” That said, he urged speed in responding to problems that crop up: “When you find out something is leading to bad results or bad behavior, if you are in the top job, you’ve got to take action fast,” he said. Buffett was famously criticized for a wrongheaded investment in Salomon Inc.
Thus far this year, Berkshire shares have climbed more than 7%, compared with a gain of 17.5% for the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.96% a return of 13.6% for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.75% and a 23% rise for the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +1.58% Meanwhile, Wells Fargo shares are up 5.6% year-to-date, lagging behind the large-capitalization exchange-traded Invesco KBW Bank ETF KBWB, +0.78% up 20.3% over the same period.
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