Gregory Abel, Vice Chairman overseeing non-insurance operations for Berkshire Hathaway, meets shareholders within the exhibition corridor through the Berkshire Hathaway Inc annual shareholders’ assembly in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., Could 3, 2024.
Scott Morgan | Reuters
Warren Buffett plans to hand over the reins of Berkshire Hathaway on the finish of 2025 to Greg Abel, who has been working for the legendary investor for greater than twenty years and has an extended monitor report as a enterprise operator in his personal proper.
Abel has been on Berkshire Hathaway’s board since 2018, and his present title is vice chairman of non-insurance operations. That function places Berkshire’s companies in areas like utilities, railroads and retail in his purview.
The utility and vitality business is the place Abel, 62, reduce his tooth earlier than changing into Buffett’s right-hand man. He first joined Berkshire when Buffett’s agency struck a deal for a controlling stake in MidAmerican Power, the place Abel was an government, in 1999. He later served because the CEO of that firm, which was renamed Berkshire Hathaway Power.
One key function for Abel lately has been his involvement with Berkshire’s rising place in 5 Japanese conglomerates. Abel stated throughout Saturday’s shareholder assembly that he expects Berkshire to carry on to these Japan investments for many years to return.
Abel has been referred to as Buffett’s inheritor obvious since 2021, when the late Charlie Munger revealed the choice at a shareholder assembly. The well-telegraphed transfer has given Abel time to win over shareholders and different key stakeholders at Berkshire.
“Greg is prepared. I’ve little question about that. We have identified if for a very long time,” longtime Berkshire board member Ron Olson advised CNBC on Saturday.
Initially from Canada, Abel attended the College of Alberta and is lover of hockey. In his 2023 annual letter, Buffett stated that he and Abel lived only a few blocks aside from one another in Omaha within the Nineties however by no means met in particular person throughout that interval.
