Warren Buffett Poised to Address Missed Deals With Cash Pile Growing

Warren Buffett tends to rejoice when he sees a company buying back underpriced shares. At his own Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which underperformed the stock market last year by the widest margin in a decade, an increase in repurchases might not be cause for celebration.

Buffett has found little success deploying Berkshire’s growing pile of cash. Its last big takeover, a $37.2 billion deal for Precision Castparts Corp., was more than three years ago. This year, the conglomerate was outbid for a tech company. Berkshire’s struggle to find well-priced takeovers led it to open another path for putting money to work: The company loosened its buyback policy almost two years ago, but has repurchased only $4.1 billion of its shares since then.