Warren Buffett is a fan of buying dividend-paying stocks, but his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway doesn't offer a payout itself, despite its tens of billions cash. A regular dividend is a way to reward shareholders by distributing a portion of a company's earnings, often quarterly, in the form of cash. Sometimes companies even offer a small discount for reinvested dividends.
Berkshire initiated a buyback program in 2011 and relied on repurchases in recent years during a competitive deal-making environment and an expensive stock market. The conglomerate spent a record $27 billion in buybacks in 2021 as Buffett found few external acquisition opportunities. Even then, the buyback activity has slowed over the past year.