March 3 (Reuters) - Berkshire Hathaway Inc, the conglomerate run Warren Buffett, said it's going to hold its annual shareholder assembly on May 2 regardless of the coronavirus outbreak, however may curtail some of the encircling events. The Omaha, Nebraska-based firm additionally stated the scope of the assembly and associated events "could also be modified by circumstances on the time," but it had no present plans to do so. Berkshire's annual shareholder weekend, which Buffett refers to as Woodstock for Capitalists, is the biggest gathering in corporate America. It sometimes draws 40,000 or more people to Omaha for a 3-day weekend that features the meeting, reductions on merchandise from Berkshire businesses, a picnic, a 5-kilometer run, and dinner for a select few at Gorat's steakhouse. The assembly is scheduled to be dwell-streamed for a fifth 12 months by Yahoo Finance, letting people watch Buffett and longtime Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger reply five hours of shareholder questions without having to journey. Many corporations have restricted travel, together with home journey, for employees in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which began in China and has spread to eighty nations. Buffett told CNBC on Feb. 24 he anticipated that lots of the a number of thousand visitors from China who usually go to Omaha for the Berkshire weekend is not going to attend this yr. The 89-12 months-previous billionaire is widely common in China, and prior meetings have been out there by means of Yahoo Finance in Mandarin in addition to English. Berkshire owns greater than ninety companies including the BNSF railroad, Geico auto insurer and Dairy Queen ice cream, and its investments include Chinese electric automotive maker BYD Co Ltd .
