Warren Buffett steps down from chairmanship of Berkshire Hathaway

Sept. 18 (UPI) — Warren Buffet will step down as chair of Berkshire Hathaway after six decades at the helm to make way for his son, Howard Buffett, the company said Friday.

Effective immediately, the succession will see Buffett, who had led the investment firm since 1965, assume the role of emeritus chairman and continue to serve on the board as a director. The move comes eight months after he stood down as CEO in favor of Greg Abel.

The 96-year-old grew the company into a huge conglomerate with nearly 400,000 employees and a $1.2 trillion valuation, achieved by delivering a compounded annual return just shy of 20%, outperforming the benchmark S&P 500 by a factor of two over that period.

“Father Time always wins. He has, however, been generous with me. He has given me the opportunity to see Berkshire reach a point where I am more confident than ever about what lies ahead,” Buffett told shareholders in a letter.

“Greg runs the company; Howard will guard its culture and values — both worth more than anything on our balance sheet,” said Buffett, adding that Berkshire investors should regard his son as their insurance policy against which they hope to never claim.

Abel vowed to keep Buffett’s legacy — the culture he created and the values he promoted — at the core of the company.

“Warren is obviously a hard act to follow,” Abel wrote in March in his inaugural letter to shareholders after taking over the influential responsibility from Buffett whose annual missives combining investing tips with his thoughts on the wider macro-environment were eagerly anticipated both on Wall Street and in middle America.

Since taking over in 1965, Buffett developed value investing which eschews the latest thing in favor of searching out undervalued companies and taking long-term stakes in them into art.

The strategy saw Berkshire end up running firms from insurance giant GEICO and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad and with influential holdings in American blue chip behemoths such as Coca Cola and Apple.

Dubbed the “Sage of Omaha,” his expertise, developed over decades of success picking stocks, was hightly sought after. His “Woodstock for capitalists” annual shindig in Nebraska was attended by tens of thousands of people eager to pick his brains in Q&A sessions.