At Berkshire’s annual meeting today in Omaha, NE, Warren Buffett announced that he will be stepping down as CEO at the end of the year and handing the reigns to Greg Abel – ending an epic 70 year career in investing that will never be matched.

Buffett was born in Omaha in 1930 and started his first investment partnership in 1956. He was a disciple of Ben Graham, the founder of Value Investing, who he studied with at Columbia Business School and went to work for after graduation in New York. Eventually Buffett went beyond Graham’s statistically cheap style of value investing to incorporate growth and quality into the equation. This quote sums up his evolution and the essence of his mature style: “It is better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” His great friend Charlie Munger was instrumental in this evolution. Buffett started with $105,000 in 1956. Today Berkshire is worth $1.16 trillion.

Buffett’s retirement is epochal in the investment world – like the retirement of Michael Jordan from the Chicago Bulls in 1998 after winning 6 NBA Championships. While this is a moment for reverence and gratitude to Buffett, I can’t help wondering what comes next for Berkshire. Berkshire is a conglomerate consisting of operating businesses – the biggest three being the insurance operations, Burlington Northern railroad and Berkshire Hathaway Energy – and a portfolio of a publicly traded stocks – as well as a growing pile of treasuries over the last couple years as Buffett has sold stocks but not reinvested the money.

The operating businesses had operating income of $47 billion in 2024, $37 billion in 2023 and $31 billion in 2022. The stock portfolio had a market value of $264 billion as of the end of 1Q25. 69% of the value of the stock portfolio is concentrated in its five largest holdings: Apple, American Express, Bank of America, Coke and Chevron. Cash and short term treasuries are about $350 billion.

But the truth is that the special sauce in Berkshire’s historic and never to be repeated performance is the genius of Warren Buffett. Berkshire without Buffett is like the Bulls without Jordan. Berkshire shareholders have a lot to think about going forward. Long live the GOAT!

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