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Abel: Berkshire’s culture and values ”are the same and will last forever.”
In his first letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, new CEO Greg Abell didn’t try to imitate Warren Buffett’s down-to-earth, conversational writing style.
But he stressed that he does not intend to make any major changes to the way the company has operated for decades under Buffett’s leadership.
Mr. Abel opened the letter calling Mr. Buffett “perhaps the greatest investor of all time” and acknowledged that “Mr. Warren is clearly a very difficult act to follow.”
Berkshire Vice Chairman Greg Abel speaks with shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., May 2, 2025.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Last month, Abel wrote, “I sent a letter to employees emphasizing that Berkshire’s culture and values have not changed and will continue to endure.”
“We are committed to strengthening the great legacy built by Mr. Buffett and Charlie Munger and ensuring it endures through our commitment to excellence.”
Abel said Munger’s comments at the 2021 annual meeting that “Greg will protect the culture” will “eternally resonate with me” as “a reminder that our culture is our most treasured asset, a call to preserve what makes Berkshire unique, and a challenge to continue our culture.”
No changes to stock buybacks or dividends
Investors who had hoped Mr. Abel would be more specific about the criteria for share buybacks were not satisfied.
His writing on this subject could have been written by Buffett himself. “If Berkshire’s stock trades below our conservatively determined estimate of its intrinsic value, we will repurchase Berkshire’s stock, ensuring that the repurchase increases the value per share for continuing owners.”
There were no buybacks in the fourth quarter, continuing a buying streak dating back to May 2024.
Mr. Abel also disappointed shareholders who had hoped that Mr. Buffett might reverse his longstanding opposition to using some of Berkshire’s large cash reserves to pay dividends.
“Our approach to cash dividends continues to be that Berkshire will not pay dividends as long as it is reasonably likely that more than $1 of market value for shareholders will be created for each dollar of retained earnings.”
There is no “withdrawal from investment”
Mr. Abel vowed to maintain Mr. Buffett’s “fortress-like balance sheet and ensure Berkshire’s fundamentals remain intact.”
He called cash Berkshire’s “dry powder” and acknowledged, “There is no doubt that over time there will be more opportunities to leverage owner capital without compromising Berkshire’s resilience. My role is to ensure that our liquidity levels and capital deployment remain intentional and planned.”
“At various times throughout Berkshire’s history, some observers have suggested that our large cash position may indicate a divestment, but this is not the case. We continue to evaluate many opportunities and remain patient and disciplined to pursue appropriate opportunities for the benefit of our owners.”
Greg Abel speaks at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 3, 2025.
CNBC
Berkshire still has a lot of cash
Berkshire’s total cash fell 2.2% in the fourth quarter to $373.3 billion as of Dec. 31.
Excluding BNSF’s cash and treasury bills paid, it increased 4.1% to $369 billion.
Operating income decreased 29.8% year on year to $10.2 billion. Insurance underwriting fell 54% and insurance investment income fell 25%, while BNSF rose 5.3% and manufacturing, services and retail rose 3.3%.
Ajit, Craft, and Portfolio Operator
Abel praised Ajit Jain’s 40 years of “judgment and discipleship” but offered no clues about who would ultimately replace him as Berkshire’s insurance chief.
He also declined to say whether Berkshire plans to reduce or eliminate its stake in the future. Kraft Heinz Now, the new CEO has shelved plans to split the company in two, saying profits are “just not good enough.”
Abel acknowledged that responsibility for Berkshire’s stock portfolio “ultimately rests with me as CEO,” with Ted Weschler continuing to manage about 6% of the investments, including investments previously overseen by Todd Combs, who left in December to join JPMorgan.
Warren Buffett and Greg Abel inspect Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting held in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2025.
David A. Grogen | CNBC
New additions to Annual General Meeting Q&A
Several newcomers will participate in a question-and-answer session at the company’s shareholder meeting in Omaha on May 2nd.
As expected, Abel and Jayne will lead the morning session, but the afternoon session will include Abel, BNSF’s Katie Farmer, and Adam Johnson, who runs NetJets and is president of Consumer Products, Services and Retail, which was created late last year.
early reviews
In an email to Warren Buffett Watch, MacRae Sykes, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, praised Abel for covering all of Berkshire’s major divisions in his letter and said he “demonstrated humility” and “expressed clarity of communication and confidence in his role as new CEO.”
He also likes including Farmer and Johnson in the Q&A. “It is good to see the delegation of communications responsibilities and the emergence of leadership beyond Greg and Agit.”
Christopher Davis of Hudson Value Partners said it could be “the first ‘Abell Rule’ addition to Berkshire’s strategy” that prioritizes immediate and complete control of acquired private companies.
“That mistake will never happen again,” he said, citing comments from Abel that Berkshire first invested in the pilot in 2017, but its management capacity was contractually delayed until 2023.
Davis also believes that Abel’s statement that he may buy large amounts of stock from major shareholders “if the opportunity arises” supports his theory that there is a “very large buyback program” of Buffett’s stock after Buffett’s death “for his children to put money into philanthropy.”
Leading Berkshire analyst predicts 10-year annual profit margin of 10% to 12%
Mr. Blomstran believes Mr. Abel could be more aggressive with Berkshire’s money than Mr. Buffett.
“Berkshire, led by Greg Abel, is likely to deploy a large portion of its vast cash reserves today at significantly higher returns than it currently earns in U.S. Treasuries.”
Buffett and Berkshire on the Internet
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CNBC’s Buffett Archive Highlights
Observing itself is “training” to become Berkshire’s CEO (2006)
Warren Buffett explained why the successor he expected to come from within Berkshire won’t need formal training.
Audience Question: How do you train your successors? What do you say to them? How would you summarize to them what is important to you? …
WARREN BUFFETT: We want to join executives who believe in the way we operate, our partnership with our shareholders, and our lifelong commitment to business. I want those people to participate.
We want what they see after they join us to emphasize our values. Therefore, we want everything we do to be consistent with what most people would call Berkshire’s “culture.”
That is, the written word, what they saw, what they heard, and what they observed. And that in itself is training.
It’s the same training you receive as a child. So you’re learning something every day from the actions of these great people, the very important people around you at home.
And the house has a culture. Business has a culture. To some extent, a country may have a culture. And we try to do everything that matches that. We try not to do anything that contradicts that.
And believe me, if you’re a smart executive at Berkshire, and they’re smart, you know, they bought into it from the beginning and they understand that it works, and they don’t need formal lessons or guidance or anything like that.
So if you talk to Berkshire’s managers, you’ll find that their way of thinking is virtually identical to Charlie’s and mine.
There are many who are not and will not join us…
The good thing about this culture is that our culture is so clearly defined that there aren’t many mistakes people can make in terms of entering into it or acting in ways that are inconsistent with it.
Therefore, I think – I don’t think formal training is necessary…
Charlie Munger: We don’t do executive training at our headquarters. we find them. And they are not difficult to find.
You know, when a mountain towers like Mount Everest, you don’t have to be a genius to realize that it’s a high mountain.
berkshire stock watch
BRK.A stock price: $757,000.00
BRK.B stock price: $504.95
BRK.BP/E (TTM): 16.15
Berkshire Market Capitalization: $1,089,124,099,188
Berkshire’s Top Stock Holdings – February 27, 2026
Berkshire’s top U.S. and Japanese listed stocks by market capitalization, based on the latest closing prices.
Holdings are as of September 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s November 14, 2025 13F filing. However, the following cases are excluded.
A complete list of holdings and current market value is available on CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
Question or comment
If you have any questions or comments about the newsletter, please send them to alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, we do not forward questions or comments to Mr. Buffett himself.)
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I also highly recommend Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders. It’s collected here on Berkshire’s website.
— Alex Crippen, Warren Buffett Watch Editor
