Munger passed away, and Buffett's successor will take the lead this time

The 2024 Buffett shareholder meeting will be held on May 4.

Due to Charlie Munger's death, Greg Abel, who sits next to Buffett, will undoubtedly receive more attention. The market generally hopes that at this shareholders' meeting, Greg Abel can answer more questions, so that everyone can understand a little more about the investment philosophy of Buffett's successor.

The baton goes to Greg Abel

At present, Buffett is gradually handing over the investment baton to Greg Abel, his successor. In May 2021, Warren Buffett announced that Berkshire's board of directors had reached a consensus on a successor: "If something happens to me tonight, Greg Abel will take over as CEO the next morning, and if anything happens to Greg Abel, another vice chairman, Ajit Jain, will take over." ”

There has been speculation about who will be the next Berkshire CEO of these two men. It wasn't until 2020 that Munger did not attend Berkshire's shareholder meeting due to travel restrictions due to the epidemic, and Greg Abel replaced Munger to participate, and the outside world began to be generally optimistic about his role as Buffett's successor.

Both Greg Abel and Buffett's Ajit Jain were promoted to Berkshire's vice chairman in 2018, with Jain in charge of insurance and Abel in charge of non-insurance businesses, which includes more than 60 subsidiaries including railroads, utilities, manufacturing, retail and car dealerships.

Greg Abel's investment scope is more extensive, and the outside world believes that he does have strong investment ability and great vision, especially in the past few years in oil and new energy investment has been very successful.

Stand out with energy investment?

According to the data, Greg Abel, born in 1962, grew up in Edmonton, Canada. In 1984, Greg Abel graduated from the University of Alberta College of Business with a bachelor's degree in accounting, first at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Edmond and then at PricewaterhouseCoopers' San Francisco office.

In 1992, Greg Abel moved to CalEnergy, a geothermal power company. In 1999, CalEnergy merged with MidAmerican Energy, the same year Berkshire acquired the power company. In 2008, Greg Abel became CEO of the power company, diversifying into a conglomerate of natural gas, wind, solar and geothermal power, and is now a key member of Berkshire Energy. Greg Abel built a wind farm in the Midwest and Berkshire traveled to the southwest.

In January 2018, Abel was appointed Vice President of Berkshire Hathaway, where he is responsible for managing the company's non-insurance business. In a 2018 letter to shareholders, Berkshire Energy was the parent group's No. 2 non-insurance contributor in 2017 to profit, along with No. 1 BNSF Burlington Northern Railroad, which contributed 44% of the profit.

According to reports, Berkshire's energy subsidiary has grown from a blank sheet of paper to an annual revenue of about tens of billions of dollars, and Abel is the biggest contributor. Abel himself, however, is a very low-key person and hardly gives interviews to the media.

At present, Berkshire Hathaway's main assets are distributed in the insurance sector, the rail sector, the energy sector and Apple's holdings. With his outstanding contributions at Berkshire Energy, Greg Abel was able to stand out as Buffett's successor.

It is worth mentioning Abel's contender Ajit Jain here. Ajit Jain has always been one of the popular candidates for Buffett's successor. Born in 1951 in the Indian state of Coastal Odisha, Jain attended university at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, graduating with a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering in 1972. After graduating from university, he worked in sales at IBM India.

Jia came to the United States in 1978 to pursue his studies, where he received his MBA from Harvard University before joining McKinsey & Company, where he worked until 1986, when he joined Berkshire. According to previous media reports, he himself does not talk much, and rarely appears in public, and only at the shareholders' meeting, when talking about the insurance business, will he take the microphone handed by Buffett.

Prior to joining Berkshire Hathaway, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain both worked in consulting services, and both worked at Berkshire Hathaway where they were responsible for outstanding profitability. Abel is widely believed to be more competitive than Jayne because he wins by age, having been 11 years younger than Jain.

Warren Buffett has publicly stated that he hopes that the successor himself is already very wealthy and does not need to think about making more money, not because he can earn more than ten times as much money to work in Berkshire, but also hopes that the successor will work in Berkshire for more than 10 years.

Can Berkshire's investment miracle continue?

Back in a 2014 letter to shareholders from Berkshire, Warren Buffett said that the next CEO would be chosen from within the company, relatively young enough to run Berkshire for at least 10 years, and did not expect the board to elect someone who would retire at the legal age of 65 to replace him.

But age may not be the only key factor. According to the analysis, Greg Abel has long reflected the demeanor of a successor in the management of Berkshire. Greg Abel is considered to be an energetic and relatively low-key investment genius who is extremely efficient and, most importantly, able to treat his work as his life.

For decades, Warren Buffett has always adhered to his value investment philosophy and invested in areas he is familiar with, and the vast majority of the fields he is familiar with are in traditional consumption, finance and other industries. may also cause it to miss out on Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other technology companies that are developing at an astonishing speed in the technology era.

It wasn't reportedly until 2016 that Buffett really began to make a noticeable shift in his attitude towards tech stocks. In an exclusive interview with the media, the stock god said that he regretted missing out on many technology stocks, especially Google and Amazon. Since 2016, Warren Buffett has gradually intervened in technology stocks, and Apple is now a heavy stock in Berkshire Hathaway. Overall, however, Berkshire's coverage of technology stocks is still far underweight, and its style is still on the traditional side compared to its peers in the U.S. market.

Some market analysts believe that investment is a very personalized thing, and after Buffett steps down, there is still some uncertainty about whether Abel can fully continue Buffett's investment style and whether he can have Buffett's perseverance and vision. Although the investment philosophy is the same, the times are different, the life experience is different, and the investment experience is different, and there is uncertainty about whether Berkshire Hathaway can continue Buffett's miracle in the future.

For this shareholders' meeting, the market also hopes that Greg Abel can answer more questions from shareholders and let everyone know more about his investment philosophy.

Editor-in-charge: Wang Shidan | Review: Li Zhen | Supervisor: Wan Junwei

(Source: Oriental Fortune Network)