This year’s Berkshire Hathaway meeting gave shareholders their best chance yet to hear from the man who will one day take over as CEO when Warren Buffett is gone, but Buffett said for the first time Saturday that Greg Abel should also take responsibility for the company’s investments after he takes over, raising new questions about the succession plan.
Abel put his encyclopedic knowledge of the utility business that he led directly for years on display and delved into railroad operations and potential acquisitions that Berkshire pursued while sharing the stage with Buffett all day. For his part, the 93-year-old billionaire showed investors he is still sharp.
Abel pointed out that it required a major culture shift to get workers at PacifiCorp and the other utilities, who have long focused all their energy on keeping the lights on, to think about shutting the power down at times when the risk that their power lines could spark wildfires is too great. He also said BNSF railroad is working on getting “our cost structure right” after delivering disappointing results.
Succession was clearly top of mind for many of the thousands of people who filled an Omaha arena to listen to the two men after last fall’s death of Vice Chairman Charlie Munger. Buffett, Abel and Ajit Jain, Berkshire’s other top executive who oversees the company’s insurers, reassured investors that Berkshire’s board spends plenty of time focused on “what would happen to the operation if I get hit by a truck,” as Jain put it. Finding the right replacement for any of the three of them will be important.
Previously, Buffett had said that when Abel becomes CEO, investment managers Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who’s also taken on the responsibility of being Geico’s CEO, would handle Berkshire’s massive portfolio. But Buffett said Saturday that his thinking has evolved, and that “I would probably, knowing Greg, I would leave the capital allocation to Greg.”
And Buffett said because Abel understands businesses so well, he also understands stocks.
But Edward Jones analyst James Shanahan said a good business doesn’t always make a good stock unless you get the timing and position size right, and there is an art to that.
“I think stock picking is hard. I don’t think it’s something you can just start doing and be good at it,” Shanahan said.
Abel does have a history of making multibillion-dollar deals when he was the head of…
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