Who is Greg Abel, the man who will soon fill Warren Buffett’s shoes?

Greg Abel will run Warren Buffett’s billion-dollar empire when the 93-year-old super investor is no longer there, Buffett explicitly confirmed for the first time last weekend. A thankless task, but after 25 years at Berkshire Hathaway, Abel should be ready for it.

“He has an incredible understanding of how businesses work,” Warren Buffett said last weekend about Berkshire Hathaway’s number two Greg Abel. With those words, Buffett underlined that the 61-year-old Canadian is still the preferred man to succeed him after his death.

That has been said for years, but rarely has the now 93-year-old Buffett mentioned it so explicitly as during the most recent general meeting. The fact that his long-time partner de route Charlie Munger passed away at the end of last year at the ripe old age of 99 makes Buffett watchers even more focused on the succession.

Since 2018, Abel has been in charge of the non-insurance activities of Berkshire, which has extensive interests in (among others) the American energy, transport and utilities sectors and has now worked in Warren Buffett’s stable for more than 25 years. He ended up there by chance, when the utility company he worked for was taken over by Berkshire Hathaway in 2000.

At that time, Abel, an accountant by training, was already making a career in the American energy sector, after a short stint with the major consultant PwC. Abel’s analytical qualities were also quickly noticed at Berkshire.

He reportedly distinguished himself at Berkshire by operationally perfecting several companies under his watch, with positive consequences for profitability. The profitability of Berkshire Hathaway’s non-insurance arm has improved significantly under Abel’s wings.

According to Buffett, Abel also combines his analytical talent with deep strategic insight and the ability to think in the long term. ‘There are a lot of smart people doing stupid things. Greg is a smart man who never does stupid things,” Buffett once said of his protégé.

The Canadian will soon not only oversee Berkshire Hathaway’s daily activities. The important decisions about the listed portfolio also end up with Abel. Until now, most analysts assumed that these responsibilities would be separated.

“But I think the responsibility should be entirely on Greg,” Buffett clarified at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting. ‘The responsibility has been mine, and I outsourced some of it, but I’ve changed my mind about that. The final responsibility must always lie with the CEO.’ The intention is that the lines at Berkshire Hathaway will remain short even after Buffett’s resignation. ‘We don’t want 200 people who each manage $1 billion. That just doesn’t work.’

In any case, Abel will soon face an almost impossible assignment: fill the shoes of the most acclaimed investor ever, who with Berkshire achieved a fabulous operating profit of $ 11.2 billion in the first quarter of this year and has a cash pile of $ 182 billion. .

The promotion to CEO becomes mainly a matter of prestige for Abel, because he no longer has to do it for the money. He was bought out from Berkshire Hathaway’s energy branch in 2022. The company then paid approximately $870 million for the acquisition of Abel’s shares in the company.