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Greg Abel faces the challenge of taking over Berkshire Hathaway from the legendary Warren Buffett later this week.
Many regard Buffett as the world’s greatest investor after he grew Berkshire from a struggling New England textile mill that he starting buying up for $7.60 a share in 1962, to the massive conglomerate it is today with shares that go for more than $750,000 a pop. Buffett’s personal fortune of Berkshire stock is worth roughly $150 billion even after giving away more than $60 billion over the last 20 years.
Berkshire for decades has routinely outpaced the S&P 500 as Buffett bought up insurance companies like Geico and National Indemnity, manufacturers like Iscar Metalworking, retail brands like Dairy Queen, major utilities and even one of the nation’s biggest railroads, BNSF. Along the way, Buffett bought and sold hundreds of billions of dollars of stocks and profited handsomely from his famously long-term bets on companies like American Express, Coca-Cola and Apple.
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Berkshire has struggled to keep that pace in recent years because it has grown so huge and also struggled to find new and significant acquisitions. Even this fall’s $9.7-billion acquisition of OxyChem probably isn’t big enough to make a difference in Berkshire’s profits.
Investors will be watching closely to see what changes Abel might make in Berkshire’s trajectory, but don’t expect any seismic shifts.
Buffett isn’t going anywhere and Abel has already been managing all of Berkshire’s noninsurance businesses since 2018. Buffett will remain chairman and plans to continue coming into the office each day to help spot new investments and offer Abel any advice he asks for.
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Some changes are likely
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