By Jonathan Stempel
Dec 31 (Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway shares closed slightly lower on Warren Buffett’s final day as chief executive, with the legendary investor set to hand the reins to Greg Abel on Thursday.
The price of Berkshire Class A shares edged down $600, or 0.1%, to $754,800 on Wednesday, while the Class B share price fell $1.06, or 0.2%, to $502.65. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.7%.
Investors fortunate enough to own Berkshire since 1965, when Buffett took over, realized a return of about 6,100,000%, far above the S&P 500’s approximately 46,000% return including dividends.
The index outperformed in 2025 and over the last decade, though Berkshire never had a down year, as Buffett struggled to find acquisitions for his $1.08 trillion conglomerate.
Berkshire subsidiaries include the insurer Geico, the BNSF railroad, dozens of manufacturing and energy businesses, and retail brands such as Brooks, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom and See’s Candies. It ended September with $381.7 billion of cash and equivalents.
Abel, 63, joined Berkshire in 2000 when it bought MidAmerican Energy, now known as Berkshire Hathaway Energy. He has been a vice chairman managing Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses since 2018.
Buffett, 95, will remain chairman and plans to keep going every day to Berkshire’s office in Omaha, Nebraska, about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of his home, and help Abel.
Vice Chairman Ajit Jain will retain day-to-day oversight of Berkshire’s insurance businesses, while Abel will continue monitoring the BNSF, manufacturing and energy businesses.
Adam Johnson, chief executive of luxury plane unit NetJets, will directly oversee Berkshire’s consumer products, service and retail businesses, which Abel has been doing.
Berkshire has not said who will take over its equity portfolio, whose $283.2 billion of stocks as of September 30 included Apple and American Express.
It was long thought that Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who helped run that portfolio, might take over, but Combs left this month for JPMorgan Chase and Buffett said in May 2024 that Abel could handle the job.
Berkshire did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Alistair Bell)
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