Greg Abel has been CEO of Berkshire Hathaway for nearly two months, and he’s already doing the financial equivalent of showing up on a first date with flowers, a better reservation, and a printed list of his best features. On Thursday, Abel revealed to CNBC that he had personally bought $15 million in Berkshire stock (his total after-tax annual salary) while the company announced at the same time that it had resumed buying back shares for the first time since 2024. The market gave it a soft 1%.
The theories are… good(?). The subtext is a bit confusing.
Abel framed both moves as signals of confidence in the leadership transition, which saw Berkshire shares down 10% from their record highs and operating income posting a decline of just under 30%. When your inheritance includes $373 billion in cash and investors are itching for you to do something with it, buybacks and private stock purchases are at least something. But her pace, at least sixty days into the work, reads less like a conviction and more like a man who saw the quarterly numbers and decided he had to fast forward to the narrative.
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The most interesting moment is how good Warren Buffett is still in the room. Abel told CNBC that Oracle is still in the office 5 days a week, and even called Warren before his personal stock purchase. The company specifically disclosed the purchase due to a “leadership transition,” according to Abel, a framework that only makes sense if the transaction is not yet complete. When CNBC’s Becky Quick asked what Buffett and the board thought about the total pay reinvestment plan, Abel reported that they said “it’s so Berkshire,” which is either a hearty vote of confidence or a strange fantasy of Warren and his board playing out as lovebirds who say one thing but mean the complete opposite.
Abel says he wants to replace it for 20 years. At times, he had to do it himself for several months.
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(translating tags) Greg Abel
