Over the weekend, Warren Buffett hosted what we now know was his final shareholder meeting as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B).
Investors always anticipate Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting, as it is one of the only times Warren Buffett, in answering investor questions, offers up his opinions and wisdom to investors on a large scale.
However, few were expecting Buffett to reveal, as he did in the final throes of 2025's session, that he intends to step down as CEO of the company at the end of the year.
As we've covered here at the Fool, it is a momentous changing of the guard for investors, who have become used to seeing Warren Buffett at the helm of one of America's most successful companies for over six decades.
This time next year, Greg Abel will be sitting in the chair that Buffett has occupied for so long.
Greg Abel has been a senior member of Berkshire's leadership team since 2018, when he was named as the company's vice-chair for non-insurance operations. Before this appointment, Abel ran Berkshire's energy subsidiary MidAmerican Energy, which subsequently was renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
According to the Omaha World-Herald, Buffett said this way back in 2013 about Abel: "I always make time for Greg when he calls, because he brings me great ideas and is truly innovative in his thinking and business approach".
For a few years after becoming vice-chair, Abel was discussed as a potential replacement for the ageing Buffett, alongside Berkshire's well-regarded head of insurance operations, Ajit Jain. But it was only in Berkshire's 2021 shareholder meeting that Buffett confirmed that Abel would be his nominated successor as CEO when Buffett eventually leaves the post.
Now, that abstract future has become reality.
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Greg Abel: Warren Buffett's chosen one
Stepping into the shoes of someone most investors regard as the greatest of all time is an unenviable task. Yet Buffett has long been adamant that Abel is more than up to the task.
Buffett once described Jain and Abel as having "Berkshire in their blood". He went on to say:
They love the company. They know their operations like the back of their hand. So it's very good for Berkshire. And it's even better for me.
In Buffett's letter to shareholders from February of this year, he elaborated on Abel specifically:
At 94, it won't be long before Greg Abel replaces me as CEO and will be writing the annual letters. Greg shares the Berkshire creed that a "report" is what a Berkshire CEO annually owes to owners. And he also understands that if you start fooling your shareholders, you will soon believe your own baloney and be fooling yourself as well.
Of course, we didn't know then that the 'won't be long' would be less than a year.
Importantly, Abel also enjoyed the confidence of Buffett's late and great right-hand man, Charlie Munger (the same Charlie mentioned above). Munger was Buffett's vice chair for decades until his much-mourned passing in late 2023 at the age of 99.
Here's what Munger wrote about Jain and Abel back in 2015:
Provided that most of the Berkshire system remains in place, the combined momentum and opportunity now present is so great that Berkshire would almost surely remain a better-than-normal company for a very long time even if (1) Buffett left tomorrow, (2) his successors were persons of only moderate ability, and (3) Berkshire never again purchased a large business.
But, under this Buffett-soon-leaves assumption, his successors would not be "of only moderate ability." For instance, Ajit Jain and Greg Abel are proven performers who would probably be under-described as 'world-class'. 'World-leading' would be the description I would choose. In some important ways, each is a better business executive than Buffett. And I believe neither Jain nor Abel would (1) leave Berkshire, no matter what someone else offered or (2) desire much change in the Berkshire system.
Both Buffett and Munger were businessmen who were notoriously difficult to impress. The fact that Abel has attracted such effusive praise from both over so many years should give Berkshire shareholders confidence that their company's future is in safe hands. Of course, they would all have loved for Buffett and Munger to stay at the helm until the Rapture. Abel, at least according to Buffett, is the next best choice.
