Warren Buffett steps down, Greg Abel takes over Berkshire Hathaway for 100 days: the management style of the investment empire is being rewritten

Berkshire Hathaway’s new CEO, Greg Abel, has been in office for 100 days, showing a more forceful management style than Buffett’s. He has restarted the share repurchase program and redefined Apple and three other companies as core holdings.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, within just 100 days of taking office, Greg Abel—the newly appointed CEO of Berkshire Hathaway—has already started to show clear changes. For the market, Greg Abel is not only Buffett’s chosen successor; he is also the person who will determine Berkshire’s capital allocation, subsidiary governance, and investment style over the next decade.

The 63-year-old Buffett successor, Berkshire CEO Greg Abel

Greg Abel is 63 years old and officially took over as Berkshire Hathaway CEO this January. Although he has repeatedly emphasized that Berkshire’s most core culture, values, the foundation of its insurance business, its integrated corporate structure, and the CEO-led stock portfolio investment model will not change, The Wall Street Journal makes it bluntly clear that the real situation is: change has already begun—and it is change with direction and rhythm.

Abel has promoted deputies who work closely with him, receives a salary higher than in the Buffett era but promises to use most of his compensation to buy Berkshire stock, has restarted the share repurchase program that has been nearly stalled since 2024, and has further expanded Berkshire’s presence in Japan, even purchasing shares in a local insurance company.

Insiders: Abel is more hands-on in management than Buffett

What is most worth noting in this report is the way it depicts the most fundamental difference between Greg Abel and Buffett—not the value-investing philosophy, but the management style. For a long time, Buffett has given the impression to the outside world of a manager who delegates authority heavily, intervenes very little, and is even willing to tolerate managers who underperform in order to avoid getting involved in unpleasant personnel matters. Greg Abel is not like that.

The report quotes people familiar with Berkshire’s internal operations as saying that Abel is more “hands-on” than Buffett—that is, more deeply involved in day-to-day business, more proactive in details, and with higher expectations for subsidiaries, holdings, and even senior executives. If someone cannot meet his standards, he will not be as inclined to tolerate failure as Buffett would, and he may even cut them if necessary.

This also makes Greg Abel a more typical modern corporate operator—not merely an extension of a legendary investor. Judging from his background, this style is not surprising. Greg Abel was born in Canada’s prairie region and has a typical pragmatic, straightforward North American Midwest temperament. In the past, he has long been in charge of Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, especially with Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and in practice he has been forged through management experience across large industrial and public-utility systems.

He is not only someone who understands capital markets; he also knows how to manage railroads, energy, utilities, industrial businesses, and massive, highly diversified corporate groups. That is why, after he took over Berkshire, what the outside world saw was not a philosophical continuation, but a familiar set of approaches rooted in operations, performance management, and organizational accountability—someone who is truly rolling up his sleeves and getting into the workings of this giant company.

Abel has shown a more forceful stance than Buffett

The report notes that even during the transition period before he officially took over, Abel had already made internal employees sense that the atmosphere was changing. Last December, at an employee lunch, someone even directly asked whether he would move Berkshire’s headquarters out of Omaha. If such a question had been asked in the Buffett era, it would have been almost unthinkable—but it reflected not that a headquarters move would definitely happen, but that everyone knew, “a new era is coming.” Abel responded on the spot that they would not move the headquarters, but just the act of asking was enough to indicate internal expectations for changes after the succession.

In terms of his actual working style, Greg Abel has also demonstrated a high level of engagement. Although Berkshire Hathaway’s headquarters are in Omaha, he currently still lives in Des Moines, Iowa, with no immediate plan to move to Omaha—at least until his son graduates from high school. This means he often travels between the two places multiple times each week, with a two-hour one-way drive.

More importantly, he spends a large amount of time flying on company aircraft managed by Berkshire’s NetJets, visiting subsidiary executives across the United States. This highly mobile, frequently conducted inspection approach is exactly the style of a strong, hands-on operating manager.

Greg Abel redefines Berkshire’s core holdings

From an investment perspective, Greg Abel’s first important signal is that he has begun redefining the “core” and “non-core” of Berkshire’s investment portfolio. In his first shareholder letter released on February 28, he clearly named Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Moody’s as core holdings.

This declaration is crucial because it is not only a reaffirmation of Berkshire’s preference for concentrated holdings; it also tells the market that in the Greg Abel era, Berkshire’s stock investments will still be concentrated, but it does not mean that all large holdings will hold the same status. The report even points out that Bank of America and Chevron are not regarded as core positions on the same level as the four aforementioned stocks.

In the Greg Abel era, Berkshire’s investment decisions may become more “focused”

At the same time, Greg Abel has already begun organizing the investment structure left behind by the transition period. The report states that the stock positions managed by Todd Combs have been liquidated. Todd Combs was originally one of the two investment managers Buffett recruited, and he has recently moved to JPMorgan. Even more noteworthy is the report’s claim that Abel is unlikely to hire additional investment managers to help manage the entire portfolio.

What does this mean? It suggests that future authority over Berkshire’s stock investments will likely be even more centralized in the hands of the CEO than it was during Buffett’s later years. For the market, this means decision-making efficiency could improve—and it also means Greg Abel’s personal judgment will be reflected more directly in Berkshire’s changes in holdings.

But if we’re talking about what truly defines Greg Abel’s historical position, it probably will not be whether he adjusts holdings; it will be how he uses the record-breaking cash Berkshire has on hand. According to the report, Berkshire currently holds $373.1 billion in cash. For any successor, this is both an opportunity and a pressure.

Long-term shareholders may not care whether Abel will continue Buffett’s style; what they care about is whether, when the next deep recession arrives, he will be willing to make larger, more aggressive moves than Buffett did in his later years. Long-term Berkshire investors, such as Chris Bloomstran, have said outright that their real expectation for Greg Abel is that he should have the nerve to put $300 billion into the market—and that he should be more aggressive than Buffett was in his later years.

This is also the key observation point for Abel. Because Berkshire is not an ordinary company. It is one of the very few global capital-allocation machines that simultaneously has insurance float, massive cash, complete industrial assets, and a high level of market trust. Buffett’s core strength was not just stock picking; it was the ability to make large-scale decisions with extremely low-cost capital to generate high returns during market panic. Whether Abel can inherit this capability will determine whether he is simply “a manager after Buffett,” or whether he can become “a capital allocator after Buffett.”

In addition, Greg Abel has also spent a substantial amount of time over the past year on one of Berkshire’s most important foundations: the insurance business. The report says he has prioritized learning Berkshire’s large insurance system and has been closely interacting with Ajit Jain, who has long led the insurance operations. Ajit Jain is expected to continue leading the insurance division, but Berkshire has also arranged a succession plan for him internally. This shows that Greg Abel is not only focused on the energy and industrial areas he is familiar with; he is also consciously filling in his mastery of Berkshire’s core engine—insurance.

Greg Abel’s test: the next downturn is only beginning

From the standpoint of personal image, Greg Abel, to a certain extent, does continue the Midwestern affability associated with Buffett. The report mentions that he loves hockey and even still coaches his son’s team; during the Olympics, he also intentionally supported both Canada’s men’s team and the U.S. women’s team to avoid appearing to take sides. These details make him look like a pragmatic, approachable, life-oriented person—and they fit well with Berkshire’s long-established down-to-earth culture.

But don’t be fooled by this gentle surface. What The Wall Street Journal is really portraying is a successor who does not avoid conflict. The report quotes multiple people familiar with Greg Abel as saying that he believes in self-governance and decentralization and respects Berkshire’s longstanding decentralized model, but that does not mean he will allow underperformers to continue dragging down the organization.

Simply put, Abel does not intend to replicate Buffett and Munger’s past tolerance toward subsidiaries that are underperforming. Going forward, if certain businesses fail to meet standards over the long term, being called out, being put in order, or even being sold will no longer be an impossible option.

This point is especially worth attention from the market, because Berkshire has historically rarely sold entire controlling subsidiaries. The truly representative cases in the past were the 2020 sale of the newspaper business and, earlier, the closure of the textile business in 1985. That means that in Buffett’s era, most acquired companies were held permanently. But entering the Greg Abel era, this unwritten rule may not fully hold.

If performance cannot meet the new leader’s standards, Berkshire’s way of dealing with subsidiaries in the future may be more flexible and more disciplined than what the market has been used to. Abel is not trying to overthrow Buffett; he wants to transform Berkshire from an “exceptional company led by a genius founder” into a modern holding group that maintains the spirit while strengthening execution and accountability.

He is preserving Berkshire’s most important genes: culture, insurance, concentrated investing, long-term holding, and capital discipline; but he is also adding his own signature: deeper operational involvement, greater emphasis on performance, a willingness to deal with underperformers, and a higher likelihood of bold capital deployment at major moments.

For investors, Greg Abel’s true test has not come yet. It may only arrive when the next recession hits, the next liquidity crisis occurs, or the next major M&A opportunity appears—at which point the market can see whether this new leader has the ability to make decisions that rewrite history amid chaos, the way Buffett is known for. But at least based on these first 100 days, Berkshire’s new era has already begun, and it looks like this successor is not content to just maintain the status quo.

• This article is reprinted with permission from: 《Chain News》
• Original title: 《Greg Abel’s 100 Days as Berkshire CEO: Buffett’s Successor Is Reshaping the Investment Empire’s Management Style》
• Original author: Neo