Buffett ‘going quiet’ when he finishes as Berkshire CEO
Warren Buffett has told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders they should stick around as he prepares to step down as CEO, giving a full-throated endorsement of his successor Greg Abel and promising to remain a major shareholder.
In his letter to Berkshire shareholders, likely his last before resigning at the end of the year, the 95-year-old Buffett said he would “remain silent” because Abel had taken the lead in communicating with them.
Buffett also downplayed recent declines in Berkshire’s stock price, saying Abel had “over-delivered” the high expectations he had when he first considered the 63-year-old as a CEO candidate and just needed time to gain investors’ trust.
“I can’t imagine choosing a CEO, a management consultant, an academic, a member of government (you name it) to take care of your savings and mine instead of Greg,” Buffett wrote.
“He is a great manager, a tireless worker and an honest communicator. I wish him a long tenure.”
Abel will take over writing Berkshire’s annual shareholder letters and running its annual meetings. Buffett, who will remain chairman, plans to continue communicating with shareholders during the Thanksgiving holiday.
“As the British say, ‘I remain silent,'” Buffett wrote.
Still, “surprisingly, I feel good overall,” he said, adding that “even though I move slowly and find it increasingly difficult to read, I work in the office five days a week with great people.”
Buffett has run Berkshire since 1965 and transformed it from a failed textile company into a US$1.07 trillion ($A1.64 trillion) conglomerate with nearly 200 businesses.
In his letter, Buffett announced that he plans to accelerate charitable donations to family foundations run by his daughter Susie, 72, and sons Howard, 70, and Peter, 67.
He assured that the change “in no way reflects any change in my views about Berkshire’s prospects.”
Referring to Charlie Munger, his longtime second-in-command who died in 2023, Buffett also said he wanted to hold on to a significant number of Class A shares “until Berkshire shareholders can develop with Greg the comfort that Charlie and I have long enjoyed.”
“This level of confidence shouldn’t last long,” Buffett added. “My kids are already 100 percent behind Greg, as are the Berkshire executives.”
Buffett donated more than $1.3 billion in Berkshire stock, the equivalent of 1,800 Class A shares, to four family foundations run by his children on Monday.
He has donated more than half of his Berkshire shares since 2006, primarily to the Gates Foundation, but he still owns close to 14 percent of the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate.
According to Forbes magazine, Buffett’s fortune is $148.2 billion.
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