Berkshire Hathaway Sets The Table For Greg Abel
Sleepy ol' Berkshire rings the changes ahead of Warren Buffett's retirement
One of the quiet pleasures of following Berkshire Hathaway is the near-total absence of breaking news. The conglomerate moves at its own deliberate, almost glacial pace — seemingly immune to the day-to-day hysterics that convulse most of Wall Street.
Press releases trickle out once or twice a month, usually for quaint reasons like warning shareholders about AI deepfakes of Warren Buffett or reminding everyone about upcoming quarterly results. In short, you almost never see Berkshire’s name splashed across CNBC alongside the red “Breaking News” banner.
Which makes this morning’s news — announcing several major leadership changes ahead of Buffett’s impending retirement — all the more surprising. It’s the kind of update that might merit yawns elsewhere, but feels downright seismic by Berkshire standards. After all, things rarely (if ever) change around that place.
The headline-grabber, of course, is the shock resignation of Todd Combs — who leaves to take up an “interesting and important” job at JPMorgan Chase. I don’t think anyone on the outside saw this move coming, with Combs handpicked by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger as an investment manager and later proving his managerial chops by successfully dragging GEICO out of the red.
That said, Combs’s decision makes sense. He will head up the newly-created $10 billion Strategic Investment Group inside JPMorgan Chase’s Security and Resiliency Initiative — which will take stakes in companies critical to national security, the resilience of our domestic supply chain, rare-earth elements, and more.
Basically, it’s a big, quasi-patriotic, geopolitically important role that could plausibly eclipse a person’s “why” for working at Berkshire Hathaway. You can’t say that for most jobs, but this one probably fits the bill.
Buffett, for his part, offered a characteristically gracious farewell. “Todd made many great hires at GEICO and broadened its horizons,” he said. “JPMorgan, as usually is the case, has made a good decision [to hire Todd].”
Still, Combs’s exit adds another little dash of uncertainty to Berkshire’s near future — with two of the conglomerate’s three stock-pickers out the door at year’s end — and raises more than a few questions.
Will Buffett, who plans to be in the office each day in retirement, take a more active role in the portfolio than originally planned? Or will Greg Abel do so?
Could Berkshire hire someone new to plug the gap? (I know that Li Lu already turned the job down at least once, but it would be kinda fitting to see Charlie’s protege finally join the mother ship.)
Or is Berkshire content for Ted Weschler to shoulder the load alone?
And what will happen to Combs holdings like Mastercard? Will they end up on the chopping block?
Meanwhile, over at GEICO, current COO Nancy Pierce will succeed Combs as CEO. She first joined the Berkshire-owned auto insurer in 1986 and has accumulated a lot of leadership experience in claims, underwriting, and regional operations.
“Nancy knows the business inside and out,” said Ajit Jain. “She’s practical, decisive, and focused on results. I have full confidence in her ability to move GEICO forward.”
NetJets CEO Adam Johnson is now President of the Consumer Products, Service, and Retailing businesses. He will also retain his position atop NetJets despite taking on this broader mandate.
For years, Berkshire has grouped its non-insurance operating businesses into the familiar “Manufacturing, Service, & Retailing” buckets (MSR in 10-K shorthand) — but, now, the Consumer Products segment of Manufacturing is being carved out and placed under Johnson’s purview along with the aforementioned S & R businesses.
All other non-insurance operations — including the Industrial and Business Products portions of Manufacturing, BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Pilot, and McLane — will continue to report directly to Greg Abel.
In light of this change, it will be interesting to see whether the upcoming 10-K retires the old MSR framework in favor of this new delegation of duties. “I think we’ll see a Marmon-like structure around the non-insurance businesses,” Adam Mead wrote on X, “ with presidents of divisions (like the new one today).”
Abel called Johnson “an accomplished leader with a proven ability to deliver long-term shareholder value” who will “uphold Berkshire’s culture and values”.
The newly-named president will now oversee:
Consumer Products: Forest River, Fruit of the Loom, Garan, H.H. Brown Shoe Group, Brooks Sports, Duracell, Jazwares, Richline, and Larson-Juhl.
Service: NetJets, FlightSafety, TTI, Dairy Queen, XTRA, CORT, Charter Brokerage, Business Wire, IPS, and WPLG-TV.
Retailing: Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, NFM, R.C. Willey, Star Furniture, Jordan’s, Borsheims, Helzberg, Ben Bridge, See’s Candies, Pampered Chef, Oriental Trading Company, and Detlev Louis Motorrad.
I’m generally no fan of bureaucratic layers, but I think this move shows that Abel already knows exactly how he wants Berkshire structured on the subsidiary side — and need waste no time with half measures in the meantime.
After four decades of exemplary service, CFO Marc Hamburg will ride off into retirement in sixteen months. To ensure a smooth transition, Charles Chang (now CFO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy) will assume Hamburg’s duties on July 1, 2026 — and then spend the following year working (and learning) alongside him.
“Marc has been indispensable to Berkshire and to me,” said Warren Buffett. “His integrity and judgment are priceless. He has done more for this company than many of our shareholders will ever know.”
Berkshire Hathaway also appointed Michael O’Sullivan to the newly-created position of general counsel, effective January 1, 2026. O’Sullivan comes over from Snap Inc. — which might seem like an odd precursor to a job at Berkshire — but he previously practiced at Munger, Tolles & Olson for more than two decades.
Taken together, these moves tell a clear story: Berkshire Hathaway has set the table for its CEO-in-waiting Greg Abel. Adding just enough structure to manage its ever-growing sprawl of owned businesses without compromising the unique culture that makes the conglomerate so special.
Nevertheless, the feeling is still bittersweet. The end of the Buffett-Munger era is growing unmistakably near — and with that will come unexpected changes.
Future ceo of JPM
What about Ted?