The end of a golden era - Greg Abel faces the legacy of Warren Buffett

After 60 years, Warren Buffett has handed over the reins of Berkshire Hathaway in a development considered one of the most significant corporate successions of a generation. Berkshire Vice Chairman Greg Abel has assumed the role of CEO, leaving a low-profile protégé of one of the most insightful investors in history to lead the massive company. Buffett transformed Berkshire from a struggling textile mill into a financial giant valued at $1.1 trillion, spanning railroads, utilities, and insurance operations.

With Buffett promising to remain "silent," Wall Street is watching to see how Abel will utilize Berkshire's massive portfolio. The company holds more than $350 billion in cash and short-term U.S. government bonds, along with $283 billion in listed stocks. Investors will also closely examine how Abel allocates the nearly $900 million in cash flow flowing in from its businesses every week. "He inherits the most privileged position in American business leadership," stated Christopher Davis, a partner at the investment firm Hudson Value Partners, which invests in Berkshire. "Buffett was not only a great investor but someone people admired for doing the right thing and dealing fairly, and that gave Berkshire considerable room for maneuver."

Questions for the future

Investors have more questions than answers as they wait to see how Abel, a long-time Berkshire executive, will begin to leave his mark. They are eager to see if he will remain faithful to Buffett's value investing philosophy, which in recent years meant Berkshire passed on several large deals and avoided many flashy technology investments. Some analysts and investors have also pressed for the establishment of quarterly earnings presentations or better qualitative insight into the performance of individual units, a decision that now rests with Abel.
The new CEO is rarely available to the press and investors. Shareholders have instead relied on his comments at Berkshire's annual meetings in Omaha, Nebraska, for clues on how he will evaluate investment opportunities and the business characteristics he will seek when "elephant hunting," Buffett's term for the group's massive corporate acquisitions. Abel, a Canadian who rose through Berkshire’s utility division, has signaled that the company's investment philosophy will not change.

Strategy and new moves

Last year, he told investors he would continue to target businesses that generate significant cash flows and that the company's long-term investment horizon would remain intact. He added that Berkshire will still need to have a view on a company’s economic prospects 10 or 20 years out before investing, whether buying a business outright or purchasing a minority stake. Investors are particularly focused on whether Abel participated in Berkshire's $43 billion investment in Google owner Alphabet in late 2025, or if it was Buffett who approved the wager.
If Abel was the key driver of the investment, investors might see it as a sign that Berkshire is open to large bets on fast-growing technology companies. Abel has already begun to leave his stamp on certain parts of the Berkshire empire. He will be joined by a new CFO next year, as well as the company's first general counsel. He has also promoted the CEO of fractional jet ownership company NetJets to chairman of 32 of Berkshire's consumer, retail, and service businesses, a division that generated more than $40 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2025. According to Darren Pollock, a portfolio manager at Cheviot, these appointments represent a move by Abel to fill gaps in Berkshire’s lean Omaha head office, which at the end of 2024 employed just 27 people.

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