Meet Executive succeeds Warren Buffett after Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
As Warren Buffett announced at the annual shareholders' meeting, he will resign as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year, promoting a 62-year-old senior Canadian executive, Greg Abel, who has long been one of his top lieutenants.
When Warren Buffett announced at Saturday's annual shareholder meeting that he would resign as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year, he promoted Greg Abel, a 62-year-old low-key Canadian executive who has long been one of his high school students.
For the past seven years, Abel has been overseeing Berkshire's BNSF railroad and its treatment manufacturer, See's Candies and Dairy Queen, and dozens of other manufacturing and retail businesses that Buffett acquired over the years.
He grew up as a hockey player in Canada and learned the value of hard work while redeeming abandoned bottles and working for a small company that filled fire extinguishers. Now, he finds himself at the top of the food chain in the investment world.
Berkshire confirmed Abel as Buffett's successor in 2021 after former vice chairman Charlie Munger slipped at the annual meeting. Since then, Abel has largely remained in Buffett's shadow, although there is a chance to know Buffett when shareholders have the opportunity to appear side by side with him in annual meetings and interviews.
The Berkshire board of directors will now vote on whether to formally approve Abel as the new CEO to take over by the end of 2025. Buffett said he expected this to happen through a unanimous vote.
Abel will move forward, responsible for all of Berkshire’s eclectic businesses, its nearly 400,000 employees and a large stock portfolio of its corporate group. Buffett and Berkshire board members have spent a lot of time searching for Buffett’s successor over the years, praising Abel’s talent and tricks to understand various businesses.
Buffett once said Berkshire was “so lucky” to get Abel ready to take over, but he would have a hard time getting close to Buffett’s outstanding record of surpassing the market. Although Buffett reached timing trading and stock investments at attractive prices, and Buffett grew Berkshire over decades, Berkshire’s huge scale makes it difficult to find something big enough to change the bottom line of a conglomerate lately.
Abel has big shoes to fill, but no one expected him to match Buffett’s achievements, which has made him a billionaire many times and one of the wealthiest investors in the past century. Longtime Berkshire board member Ron Olson said two days before the announcement that he believed Abel was ready to take over.
“Is he another Warren Buffett?” Olson said, “He must be very high integrity.” He is a hardworking person. He is a strategic thinker. ”
Buffett has said for years that Abel's main job as CEO will be to uphold Berkshire's unique decentralized culture, built on independence, integrity and trust. In fact, Munger made a comment about Abel's future character “Greg will retain culture.”
Executives at various subsidiaries, including Neaker Maker Brooks Running, Floor Giant Shaw and Borsheims Jewelry, say they turn to Abel whenever they face tough problems in their business related to strategy or operational details, even though he will always be available when needed, and even though he will offer challenges when he is needed, he will challenge them.
“When I think of Greg, not only does he have high business acumen, but his business instincts are really high,” said Troy Bader, CEO of the Dairy Queen. “Intuition is really important. And, Warren has that intuition, but Greg has a lot, too.”
Abel never conducted many interviews, although he showed detailed business knowledge at the Berkshire conference while discussing utilities and railroads. But when the group paid tribute to him in 2018, he did catch a glimpse of the background of the Horatio Alger Society.
Abel's family education and hard work and perseverance courses in Edmonton, Alberta are similar to what Buffett learned while working at his grandfather's Omaha grocery store.
“I think hard work will lead to good results. In my academics, in my sport, in my business position, I learned that if I put in a lot of work and have been fully prepared, success is more likely.”
Abel, who lives in Buffett's hometown in Des Moines, Iowa for about two hours, has led Berkshire Hathaway's energy since 2011 and has helped coach his kids' hockey and soccer teams. He is expected to continue living there because Berkshire is so dispersed that there is no reason to move to Omaha headquarters. Buffett has only a few dozen people working in his office as he spends a lot of time reading business reports and making occasional calls.
(This story has not been edited by DNA staff and published from AP/PTI).
