Buffett to give up CEO role at year end
Abel was designated the CEO successor in 2021
Buffett says has “zero” intention to sell Berkshire stock
By Jonathan Stempel and Suzanne McGee
OMAHA, Nebraska, May 3 (Reuters) –
Warren Buffett said on Saturday he will step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year, and hand over the reins to Vice Chairman Greg Abel.
“I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive of the company at year end,” Buffett, 94, said at Berkshire’s annual meeting.
He said Abel hadn’t been aware of his plans prior to the announcement, though Buffett had told his children.
Abel, 62, has been a Berkshire vice chairman since 2018, and was named Buffett’s expected successor as chief executive in 2021.
Buffett also said he had “zero” intention of selling any of his Berkshire stock, nearly all of which will be donated after his death.
The decision to step down caps a remarkable 60-year run where Buffett transformed Berkshire from a failing textile company into an enormous conglomerate with businesses across the U.S. economy.
Buffett took over Berkshire in 1965 and with his longtime friend and business partner Charlie Munger, who died in November 2023, built it into an American success story.
Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett and Munger grew up, Berkshire today is a more than $1 trillion conglomerate with close to 200 businesses including Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad, industrial and chemical companies, utilities, Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear and See’s Candies.
Buffett became known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” both for his investing success as well as his folksy wisdom and modest lifestyle.
While Berkshire stock rose 5,502,284% from 1965 to 2024, Buffett never moved from a home he paid $31,500 for in 1958.
Buffett was a disciple of Benjamin Graham, the economist and his former professor, stressing the importance of company fundamentals and not overpaying for assets.
That approach often made it hard to deploy Berkshire’s ever-growing cash hoard, which reached $347.7 billion at the end of March.
Abel joined the former MidAmerican Energy, now known as Berkshire Hathaway Energy, in 1992, eight years before Berkshire took it over. He later led that business for a decade.
“He does all the work, and I take the bows,” Buffett joked in an April 2023 television interview.
Buffett’s fortune is worth $168.2 billion according to Forbes magazine, and would have been much higher had he not since 2006 given away more than half his Berkshire shares to charity.
Nearly all of the rest is expected to go into a
overseen by his daughter Susie and sons Howard and Peter.
Abel will face challenges including how to help Berkshire grow meaningfully without overpaying for acquisitions, whether to pay a dividend and how to deploy the cash.
Size will likely weigh on Berkshire’s growth prospects, with Buffett acknowledging in 2024 that “eye-popping performance” was not in the company’s future.
In addition to owning its many businesses, Berkshire owns multi-billion-dollar stakes in many stocks including Apple , American Express and Bank of America.
Howard Buffett, 70, is expected to succeed his father as Berkshire’s non-executive chairman, to help preserve the company’s culture.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in Omaha, Nebraska; additional reporting by Suzanne McGee and Carolina Mandl; editing by Megan Davies and Diane Craft)
