FILE - Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, smiles as he plays bridge following the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, Neb., May 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
OMAHA: Warren Buffett will not take the stage at the Berkshire Hathaway 2026 annual meeting, preferring instead to let his successor have the spotlight after he retires, the Omaha World-Herald reports.
Buffett, 94, announced at the end of this year’s meeting two weeks ago that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer (CEO) of the conglomerate he founded but would remain chairman of the board.
His successor Greg Abel will become the next Berkshire CEO at the end of the year and will take Buffett’s place on stage at Buffett’s request, the paper reported, quoting Buffett’s daughter Susie.
Meanwhile, Buffett plans to sit with the rest of the board of directors. Abel told the newspaper that the annual company meeting will be in Omaha on May 2.
Susie Buffett, Warren Buffett’s daughter and a Berkshire board member, told the newspaper that her father thought it was appropriate for Abel to take the stage without him.
“I’m not going to be up there,” she recalled him saying when he first told her his decision. “I’m going to leave it to Greg.”
Susie Buffett said it was unclear whether the annual meeting will still draw as many as 30,000 investors without her father on stage, but the company is expecting people to attend next year to see what the event is like without him. — Bloomberg
