Didn't he say he wished he'd never bought Berkshire and just kept investing privately with clients and he'd be better off? Maybe it's not his top priority and prefers his "project" of acquiring companies eg Burlington because he likes trains etc.

If I was in his position it'd be much more fun acquiring and owning more rather than just buying back stock. The share buybacks thing is a token gesture and keeps the share price propped up somewhat but he's not all in he prefers to acquire and sit on cash waiting for an opportunity, perhaps.

Yes I owned Tesco, I've also previously been to their head office and met their property team when they were acquiring and developing new sites. They had that period in the 90's where they swept past Sainsburys with massive growth on the back of clubcard, they kinda maxed out it the UK (saturated) and started going overseas, (China US) and it didn't work out, then at home Aldi and Lidl started expanding across the UK and taking market share, Tesco had to lower margins and stopped expanding and had to sell off loss making divisions. They also diversified into restaurants, garden centers, banking and property portal websites. You kinda know they're "lost" when they start doing that. I sold out at break even taking dividends after a few years. They've never recovered and won't do either.

Studied retail quite in depth and I'm not a great fan overall.