Executives must be held accountable for failed banks: Warren Buffett

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett said executives in charge of failed banks should be held accountable for mistakes that in some cases were hiding in “plain sight.”

Buffett also called out regulation overseeing the banking sector as riddled with skewed incentives, as well as poor messaging by regulators, politicians and the press to the American public about the upheaval. The turmoil began with the liquidation of a small crypto-friendly lender in early March before it spread to engulf three other regional banks.

“The situation in banking is very similar to what it’s always been in banking – the fear is contagious, always,” Buffett said Saturday at the conglomerate’s annual general meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Penalties must “hit the people that caused the problems.”

Buffett himself was in touch with the Biden administration about a role in the turmoil, Bloomberg reported in March. The billionaire investor has a long history of stepping in to aid banks in crisis, leveraging his cult investing status and financial heft to restore confidence in ailing firms. Bank of America Corp. won a capital injection from Buffett in 2011 after its stock plunged amid losses tied to subprime mortgages. Buffett still likes and owns shares in that bank, he said on Saturday.

Buffett also pointed to First Republic Bank, which JPMorgan Chase & Co. just rescued. First Republic’s filings showed the lender was offering jumbo, non-government-backed mortgages at fixed rates and in some cases for ten years — “a crazy proposition,” Buffett said.

“It was doing it in plain sight and the world ignored it ‘til it blew up,” Buffett said.

Much of the issue stemmed from piles of securities held by the banks that had lost value as interest rates rose. That poured spotlight on accounting classifications for recording value of the securities. In a lighter joke with the audience, Buffett, 92, picked up a placard that said “available for sale.”

He then passed one to his longtime business partner Charlie Munger, 99, which said “held to maturity.”