WORLD
Buffett to hang up his boots by year-end, passing the baton to Greg Abel
- IBJ Bureau
- May 05, 2025
Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett, 94, has announced that he will step down as CEO of multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway at the end of this year. Mr Buffett has added that Greg Abel, the vice-chair of non-insurance operations and chair of energy of Berkshire Hathaway, will take over the company by the end of the year.
Mr Buffett has run the company since 1965, and yet the reactions to the announcement at the annual shareholders’ meeting on Saturday included “surprise” and “shock”, according to many media reports.
That is because Mr Buffett has long become synonymous with the brand and is an American business icon himself. For decades, he led a company that owns a diverse set of assets, including railroads and the battery-maker Duracell. It has made huge investments in the likes of Apple and Coca-Cola, earning him the moniker Oracle of Omaha, referring to his hometown in the State of Nebraska, US.
A BBC report has said: “Mr Abel, sitting next to Mr Buffett on stage, was apparently caught unaware by the announcement.” Mr Buffett’s successor, Gregory Edward Abel, was born in Edmonton, in the Canadian province of Alberta, on June 1, 1962, to a working-class family. Working odd jobs in his early years, he used to clean discarded bottles and fill fire extinguishers.
Upon graduating from the University of Alberta, he had worked at consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and energy firm CalEnergy. He later joined Berkshire Hathaway Energy, then known as MidAmerican Energy, in 1992, which Berkshire later took over.
Among other things, Abel oversees several chemical, industrial and retail operations. Within the last year, he has also taken over some of Mr Buffett’s capital allocation responsibilities.
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