‘Oracle of Omaha’ stuns shareholders, but pledges to maintain investments in group and says he will still be ‘hanging around’.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has announced that he will retire from leading his Berkshire Hathaway business group at the end of the year.
Buffet told the group’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday that he would step down as chief executive at the close of 2025, handing over the reins to vice chairman Greg Abel, already known to be his anointed successor.
“I would still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases, but the final word would be what Greg said in operations, in capital deployment, whatever it might be,” said Buffett at the meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
He added that the board of directors would be “unanimously in favour” of his recommendation.
About an hour later, Abel came out to oversee a formal Berkshire business meeting without Buffett. “I just want to say I couldn’t be more humbled and honoured to be part of Berkshire as we go forward,” he said.
Abel, 62, who has been the group’s vice chairman since 2018, managing non-insurance operations, was named Buffett’s expected successor as chief executive in 2021, but it was always assumed he would not take over until after Buffett’s death.
Previously, 94-year-old Buffett, known as the “The Oracle of Omaha” because of the influence he wields in business and financial circles, has always maintained he has no plans to retire.
His decision to step down caps a remarkable 60-year run during which he transformed Berkshire from a failing textile company into a $1.16 trillion conglomerate with liquid assets of $300bn.
Buffett’s net worth as of Saturday is $168.2bn, according to Forbes magazine’s real-time rich list. On Saturday, he pledged to keep his fortune invested in the company.
“I have no intention – zero – of selling one share of Berkshire Hathaway. I will give it away, eventually,” Buffett said.
“The decision to keep every share is an economic decision because I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg’s management than mine,” he said.
Earlier Saturday, Buffett warned about the dire global consequences of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, saying that “trade should not be a weapon” but “there’s no question that trade can be an act of war.”
Buffett said Trump’s trade policies have raised the risk of global instability by angering the rest of the world.