Greg Abel News

Everyone knows Warren Buffett’s successor won’t be able to match the legendary investor

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) — Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) class B shares gained 5% before the bell on Monday after the $900-billion conglomerate posted its second straight record annual profit and its chairman Warren Buffett reassured investors that it was 'built to last'.

Berkshire Hathaway’s future chief executive officer is no Warren Buffett. Fortunately for Greg Abel, he doesn’t have to be. Buffett, the 93-year-old chairman and CEO, unwrapped one of corporate America’s longest-running mysteries in 2021 when he confirmed that Abel was his pick to succeed him in the role as CEO.

Charlie Munger didn't manage to help pull off one final deal with his lifelong partner Warren Buffett, but he remained hopeful that Berkshire Hathaway, with nearly $160 billion cash, will find its elephant one day.

Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger heralds the end of an era, leaving Warren Buffett as the conglomerate's lone investing legend and shining the spotlight on managers who have largely operated in their shadow. Few companies have been so closely associated with their leaders as Berkshire has with Buffett and Munger, who knew each other for more than six decades, the last 45 years as the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate's chairman and vice chairman. Munger's death on Tuesday, five weeks shy of his 100th birthday, leaves Berkshire Vice Chairmen Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, who respectively oversee its non-insurance and insurance businesses, as the 93-year-old Buffett's top advisers and sounding boards. They became vice chairmen in 2018, started taking a more prominent public role only at the most recent of Berkshire's annual meetings, and will have bigger boots to fill than at almost any other company. Managers have said Abel fully embraces Berkshire's culture, which includes an extreme decentralization that gives business units broad autonomy. That means big units such as the BNSF railroad and Geico car insurer, each with tens of thousands of employees, and small units such as Borsheims jewelry, with about 142 employees, can run without interference from Berkshire headquarters, which employs only about 26 people. But Abel and Jain have different styles from Buffett and Munger. At the 2021 annual meeting, Jain was asked how he and Abel interact with each other. «There is no question that the relationship Warren has with Charlie is unique and it's not going to be duplicated,» Jain said. «We don't interact with each other as often as Warren and Charlie do.

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) -Charlie Munger, the longtime vice chairman and second-in-command to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa), died on Tuesday morning at a California hospital.

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Warren Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, and nearly six decades later as the «Oracle of Omaha» turned 93 Wednesday, his conglomerate is stronger today than it's ever been.

Shrewd business legend Warren Buffett has a whimsical side, buying companies whose products he personally enjoys like Dairy Queen and See's Candies. Now count plush toy phenomenon Squishmallows.

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