Warren Buffett is done being the chairman of anything.
Berkshire Hathaway announced this morning that Buffett, 96, is stepping down as chairman, effective immediately — the last big title he held after handing the CEO job to Greg Abel at the start of the year. He’ll stay on as chairman emeritus and a member of the board.
His son Howard Buffett, a Berkshire board member since 1993, takes over as chairman.
In a letter to shareholders, Buffett said Abel has exceeded his “sky high” expectations as CEO. “Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values — both worth more than anything on our balance sheet,” he wrote. And in maybe the most Buffett line of the whole letter: “Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against.”
The man took a fading Nebraska textile mill and turned it into a trillion-dollar conglomerate, and he signed off with an insurance joke. That’s the whole career in one paragraph.
Sources
- Axios — Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire Hathaway chairman
- CNN — Warren Buffett steps down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway
- Reuters — Warren Buffett steps down as Berkshire chair, becomes chairman emeritus
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