By Rob Sabo
Warren Buffett’s tenure as chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway—a company he’s run since 1965—is scheduled to end on Jan. 1, the conglomerate based in Omaha announced on Oct. 3 in a regulatory filing.
Berkshire Hathaway’s board of directors on Sept. 30 voted to separate the roles of the company’s chairman of the board of directors and CEO. Buffett, who has held the dual roles since 1970, will continue to serve as chair. Greg Abel will take over the top executive role.
Buffett announced in May his plans to step down from the CEO post during Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting. According to the filing, the board voted “unanimously” on May 4 to appoint Abel as the company’s next CEO, effective Jan. 1.
“I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end,” Buffett said at the time.
By staying on as chairman of the board, the 95-year-old Buffett is likely to stay busy at the investment conglomerate. In his many decades at the helm of the investment firm, Buffett transformed Berkshire Hathaway from a struggling textile manufacturer into one of the world’s most valuable companies with a market capitalization exceeding $1 trillion, including a record of more than $340 billion in cash.
Berkshire Hathaway said in its second-quarter regulatory filings that its largest investment positions are in American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, and Chevron. It also wholly owns BNSF Railway, Sees Candy, and Geico Insurance, among other businesses.
Abel, 63, joined Berkshire Hathaway’s board of directors in 2018 as vice chair of non-insurance operations and chair of Berkshire Hathaway Energy. He has already begun making headlines at Berkshire Hathaway after the conglomerate announced on Oct. 2 that it was purchasing Occidental Petroleum for $9.7 billion. It’s the largest acquisition in three years for Berkshire Hathaway following its $11.6 billion acquisition of insurance provider Allegheny in 2022.
The Canadian-born Abel, son of a legal assistant mother and a salesman father, spent his teenage years working as a camp counselor for the City of Edmonton Parks and Recreation Department.
After graduating from the University of Alberta in 1984, Abel joined PricewaterhouseCoopers but quickly jumped to CalEnergy, where he held executive roles from 1992 to 2008, including being named president in 1999. That same year, CalEnergy merged with MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, and in 2014 it became Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
Abel had been expected to take over the top executive position at Berkshire Hathaway since its late vice chairman, Charlie Unger, let the news slip during a shareholder meeting in 2021.
