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This week I bring you a special edition of the newsletter: Berkshire after Buffett. In a series of pieces, led by my colleague and longtime Berkshire Hathaway watcher Eric Platt, the FT examines the conglomerate’s rich success under Warren Buffett and the challenges that will eventually face the company’s next generation of leaders.
Eric was in Nebraska for Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, dubbed the Woodstock of capitalism. The Omaha gathering had a particular poignancy, being the first time Buffett took to the stage since the death of his longtime investment partner Charlie Munger, who passed away in November at the age of 99. His death has intensified questions over the future of the business when Buffett, 93, is no longer at the helm.
At the start, the legendary investor mistakenly referred to his successor Greg Abel as “Charlie” when passing a question to him. The packed arena — so full that hundreds of people sat behind the stage, unable to see Buffett in the flesh — broke into a thunderous applause. “I’m so used to . . .,” he said, before laughing. “I checked myself a couple times already. I’ll slip again.”
Can any stockpicker follow the Oracle?
At the AGM on Saturday, Buffett gave his most direct answer yet on how responsibilities will be doled out among the small executive team that will one day lead the company, handing Abel responsibility for how hundreds of billions of dollars are allocated. “I think the responsibility ought to be entirely with Greg,” Buffett said from the stage at the CHI Health Center in downtown Omaha. “I used to think differently about how that would be handled, but I think that the responsibility should be that of the CEO.”
While Buffett made clear that Abel will have authority over not just takeovers but the sprawling conglomerate’s mammoth stock portfolio as well, two other lieutenants — Ted Weschler and Todd Combs — are expected to play a prominent role within Berkshire’s $354bn equity portfolio.
Berkshire is the last great American conglomerate, with hundreds of subsidiaries fused with the backbone of the US