In his annual letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett (93) warned the shareholders of his investment company Berkshire Hathaway that the best times for good deals are over. His $905 billion conglomerate no longer has “any chance of a breathtaking performance.”

“There are only a handful of companies left in this country that have the ability to make a real difference at Berkshire. They have been scrutinized endlessly by us and others. If we can value them, then they must be offered at an attractive price.” At the same time, there are “essentially no candidates outside the USA that represent a sensible option for Berkshire to deploy capital.”

Buffett is describing a dilemma that he has been dealing with for almost a decade: finding suitable takeover targets in order to reduce the massively grown cash holdings. Berkshire had bought a number of companies in recent years. The investment company’s own size helped, but those days are now long gone and competition has also increased, explained Buffett. In the past, investment companies raised ever larger sums of money for takeover candidates, thereby driving up their valuations to levels that the legendary investor considered unreasonable.