Investing juggernaut Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting began this weekend with CEO Warren Buffett revealing that he will step down this year.
The billionaire investor, who will turn 95 in August, announced Greg Abel as the man to take over back in May 2021, though a specific timeline for when the reins will officially be handed over has yet to be announced.
Buffett said earlier this year that “it won’t be long” before 62-year-old Abel, vice-chairman at Berkshire, replaces him as chief executive. Buffett’s long-term business partner, Charlie Munger, died a little over a year ago at the age of 99.
So, who is Greg Abel, the man who will soon be in charge of investing juggernaut Berkshire Hathaway?
Canadian-born Abel grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Edmonton, Alberta. He attended the University of Alberta, where he studied accounting and graduated with distinction in 1984.
He joined consultancy firm PwC in Edmonton as a chartered accountant, later moving to the company's San Francisco office, where one of his clients was CalEnergy, which he moved to shortly after.
Abel served as a senior executive for the company from 1992 to 2008, becoming president in 1999 when it became MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company. In 2014, MidAmerican became Berkshire Hathaway Energy – a subsidiary of Buffett’s multinational conglomerate.
Berkshire Hathaway Energy has assets in excess of $90 billion and owns subsidiaries in energy businesses in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Philippines.
In January 2018, while remaining executive chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Abel was appointed vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. He has since been a key figure in managing the company’s portfolio of non-insurance businesses.
Abel serves as a director and vice chairman of Edison Electric Institute, an association of U.S. investor-owned electric companies, and Associated Electric & Gas Insurance Services Limited, a mutual insurance company, as well as serving on the board of directors for Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited, a mutual insurance company of nuclear power facilities, and The Kraft Heinz Company.
In a May 2021 interview, Warren Buffett confirmed Abel as his future successor as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, saying he was “100 percent comfortable” with Abel as the man to take over his company.
Investors and analysts expect that Abel will preserve Buffett’s conservative approach to the business and uphold the $865 billion conglomerate's track record of investing in companies for the long haul and eschewing dividend payments to shareholders.
"We have a very special company in Berkshire, but it's that culture that makes it special, and that's not going to change," Abel said at a recent shareholder meeting.
However, Abel has reportedly already begun taking on core leadership responsibilities at Berkshire.
"In the last year, the board, really Greg and Warren, have moved from sort of preparing for success to actually practicing it," Sue Decker, lead director of Berkshire Hathaway's board, said in an interview on Friday.
"Greg has gotten much more involved in capital allocation decisions, and I know he's earned the trust of the board and Warren in that,” Decker said.
Abel is no longer viewed internally as a "CEO-in-waiting,” Decker added.
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