霍华德·巴菲特接任伯克希尔董事长，传承过渡完成

After six decades as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, is becoming chairman emeritus, handing over control to his son. Howard Buffett is no stranger to the Berkshire board, and his appointment marks the end of a transition that also ushered in new CEO, Greg Abel. We spoke with Alex Rajbhandari about, Berkshire Hathaway. He covers that for Bloomberg News, and he gave us some insight.

We've spoken about, you know, Berkshire Hathaway in the post Buffett at the helm era. We've talked about Greg Abel and kinda his vision for the company and how he's doing. But now we have another player on the board, which he's been there. You were telling me Howard, Buffett has been there, but he's stepping into a bigger role now. What does this mean for the company, and and what do we expect out of this? Yes. So this is the son of Warren Buffett, the eldest son.

He's been on the board of the company for more than thirty years now. He has a lot of experience in terms of corporate governance. He was on boards at Coca Cola, Conagra. Like, he's he knows he knows the spiel. But it's still a big step for him because he's stepping in his father's shoes. Right? He will be involved in a day to day business with Greg Abel, and Buffett is stepping out a bit more. He did already last year say he was, you know, relinquishing his role as CEO, passing on the baton to Greg Abel.

He was still around, but, you know, he's getting old, and it makes sense for him to kinda step take a step back now. Still around. He's 96 years old. What do we know about his level of engagement after, as you say, he passed the baton to to Greg Abel? So we know he said that he was still at the initiative when the investment in Google Sparent Alphabet was made earlier this year and that he engaged with Greg Abel on that.

So he was still kind of involved in major deals that Berkshire was doing, though Greg Abel was running the day to day business. Buffett said also that he was coming to the office five days a week up until recently. Old habits die hard. But, you know, a few months ago, he did say on CNBC that he broke his leg. So, you know, with age, you know, it take it makes sense for him now to kind of take a step back from that. Do we know why about the timing?

Do we think it's just time? Do you think he you know, if he was Abel's training wheels for a while, does he wanna step back and see how he does, or is it just simply that there's a clock on everything and he feels like it's time to let somebody else take the helm? He did say that he thinks it's right timing because Greg Abel has exceeded his expectations. They were sky high. It's a nice endorsement from the big guy. Right?

Yeah. Definitely. But then he also has mentioned several times in his letters recently about, you know, time passing by. And, yeah, age advancing makes it, like, perfectly understandable for him to make that move now. Warren Buffett had this oracular status. People like to hear him talk. They wanted his pearls of wisdom. What should we know about Howard? As you mentioned, he spent on all of these boards before. He was kind of, if not front and center, near the front when it came to the Buffett family's philanthropic giving.

What's he like? What makes him tick? How might he embrace this role as chairman of the board? So he's got a very eclectic background. He used to work as a head of investor relations for a food company. He also briefly ran a sheriff's office in rural Illinois. A sheriff's office. Yes. He is involved in philanthropy with his foundation that receives all the money from the I mean, his father's stake in Bercetche Hathaway.

He will be responsible with this with this pursing that money through that charity and his siblings' charities and the sibling the charity of their mother. But so he's doing a lot of things with that. He's focusing mostly on food security, conflict mitigation. He's donating a lot of money to Ukraine since 2022. So he's very eclectic, very many endeavors. He's written books. He's a photographer. There's many things to know about him now.

That sounds man. We'll get to see what he's like really when he's on stage at or if he's on stage really at the the Brochure Hathaway meeting, but we're gonna see a bit more of him in the context of Brochure Hathaway. That's certainly gonna be very interesting for us. Do you see the potential for a conflict between these two men? Is it clear who is in charge of what, or is that something that they're gonna have to carve out as they move forward?

I mean, it would be really hard to know before anything happens. And, anyway, I think the image they try to portray is a very smooth transition, and it's playing out really well. I mean, everything's been well telegraphed, and it's been since 2011 that we know that Howard is gonna be chairman at some point. So it's not really a big surprise. I think they've been I mean, that's only my take, but they've been you know, they've had plenty of opportunities to kinda work together.

They also have known each other for For a long while. Yeah. Okay. You you mentioned a moment ago the praise that Warren Buffett lavished on Greg Abel, and I'm curious if shareholders have have done the same. We just had quarterly earnings a few weeks back, and the cash pile remains astronomically tall. So how much has he sort of made a mark? Are shareholders happy with how he's kind of comported himself to the job so far?

They have. When I was in Omaha for the annual meeting in May, people were very happy with his performance. It was a very comprehensive business review of Berkshire Hathaway. Details that had not been shared before were shared to investors. Also, the moves that he's made so far are kind of interesting for investors. Right? He's resumed buybacks after more than a year of a big pause on that. He's doing some multibillion deals, the Taylor Morrison deal back in, you know, the homebuilding business, the investment in Google's parent alphabet for artificial intelligence, definitely a new area of investment for Bercetche Hathaway.

So investors are kind of you know, positive signs doesn't translate to the price the share price right now. It's remained kind of flat so far this year while the S and P has, you know, gained more than 11%. So that is a performance that, you know, is raises questions, but so far, it's, you know, it's pretty early in his mandate. It seems to me he's in a bit of a tough spot because he is taking on this mantle of this legendary investor whom people trusted almost blindly, and he's doing it at a time when so many givens in the market are just changing.

It's just a really rocky time to being trying to make any of these calls. Is that a challenge that you think he's able to rise to, or we're have to wait and see? Obviously, the the market seems to be, like, sitting back and almost waiting. We're gonna have to wait and see. We can see that some of the big investments that were made on the equity portfolio side of the company are interesting and kind of in sync with what's happening in, you know, the rest of the world.

I mean, the I'm thinking about the Delta stake that is you know, came at the right moment. The homebuilding acquisition is also interesting because there are some you know, this sector is going through some turbulences, and that's definitely another one of those very typical Buffett calls, you know, like buying a company when no one really would wanna buy it, but, like, just, you know, with a perspective of, you know, making it grow over time.

So I do think he definitely carries the metal of, you know, the Buffett philosophy. We have yet to see whether he's gonna really do it for a long term. With Howard Buffett, assuming this role as chairman, what does it say about the necessity of having a Buffett on the Berkshire board going forward? There's a lot of literature there. That I've just thrown into that sentence there. But, look, I think when you had the G

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