The announcement took the Berkshire board of directors as well as Greg Abel, which, although, has long been designated as his successor, did not expect this declaration at the end of the annual meeting. The investor indicated that even if he transmitted the reins to Greg Abel, which would have “the last word”, he “would remain around” and “could be useful in a few cases”, without specifying what his role would consist.
Guru of modern capitalism
Today vice-president of the group, Greg Abel, 62, was appointed in 2021 to take over from Warren Buffett. Berkshire Hathaway, a former textile SMEs, has become an empire under the leadership of the investor: the businessman has formed in the space of six decades the fifth world fortune.
Brought by the lever effect of compound interest and by the enormous increase in wealth in the United States, Warren Buffett has made Berkshire Hathaway a company of a value greater than $ 1,000 billion. The conglomerate today has dozens of companies, including Duracell batteries or the American car insurer Geico. All his life, the entrepreneur has invested in the long term in stable companies, whose accounts he was scrutinizing.
With the help of his trusted man and vice-president Charlie Munger, who died in 2023 at the age of 99, Warren Buffett scrupulously chose acquisitions and actions for the company’s portfolio. The conglomerate acquired a very heterogeneous assortment of companies, which the billionaire often said that he reflected the American economy as a whole. “Berching on Berkshire,” he said several times is betting on America, “said Bloomberg. The businessman also constituted a vast portfolio of shares – investing massively in firms like Apple or American Express – thus offering Berkshire another way to take advantage of business earnings that it did not entirely have.
Sobriety and philanthropy
Warren Buffett considered that one of his most important roles in Berkshire was that of allocating capital, that is to say to determine where money was to be invested. It is reported that he spent a lot of time reading in his Omaha office, which had only 27 employees last year. “His decision to focus on a few types of activities, to devote all his attention to it, and to continue thus for fifty years, was a real stroke of genius,” wrote his acolyte Charlie Munger in an annual letter. “Warren Buffett succeeded for the same reason that Roger Federer became good in tennis.”
The American, which displays according to the magazine Forbes A fortune of $ 168 billion, is also distinguished by the sobriety of his lifestyle. Regular customer of McDonald’s, he said he was drinking five cans of Cherry Coke every day. “The Oracle of Omaha”, as he is nicknamed, has lived in the same house since 1958, bought 3,500 dollars, in his hometown. During his life, Warren Buffett donated some $ 60 billion – a record – including 43 billion at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Critics against Trump
Renowned for his discretion, Warren Buffett has nevertheless complained several times not to pay enough taxes, and distilled clear -cut opinions on bitcoin or artificial intelligence, whose dangers he pointed out. On Saturday, this claimed democrat said that “trade should not be a weapon”, direct criticism of the trade war launched by Donald Trump since his return to the White House.
“There is no question” as for the fact that touching trade, in particular via customs duties, “can be an act of war,” launched the investor, without having the name of the American president once. According to him, the Trump administration should “seek to trade with the rest of the world”. “We want a prosperous world” and go in this direction “will not be (at) (at) from the United States, he said.
The title Berkshire Hathaway has grown 20% since the start of the year, when most other American companies were trembling on their basis because of Donald Trump’s customs tariffs. Between the arrival at the controllers of Warren Buffett in 1965 and 2024, the return on investment was twice that of the S&P 500 index.
