Buffett names successor

For years, perhaps the biggest question that Warren Buffett has faced is who is in line to replace him as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate he built into a $631 billion colossus over more than 50 years.

The answer has finally emerged: Gregory Abel, 59, the lieutenant who oversees Berkshire’s noninsurance operations.

“The directors are in agreement that if something were to happen to me tonight, it would be Greg who’d take over tomorrow morning,”

Buffett, 90, told CNBC on Monday.

Abel’s star began rising in 2008 when he was named chief executive of what was then called MidAmerican Energy, a power business that Berkshire bought eight years prior. Abel helped spearhead a series of acquisitions that turned the division — since renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy — into one of America’s biggest utility companies.

Abel was named vice chairman of Berkshire in 2018, alongside Ajit Jain, the longtime head of Buffett’s vast insurance operations. Analysts and investors widely interpreted the move as signaling that both men were contenders to succeed Buffett as chief executive one day.