Will Berkshire Hathaway Succeed After Warren Buffett Leaves?

6 days ago 8

David Butler, The Motley Fool

Sun, November 9, 2025 astatine 12:05 PM CST 5 min read

Much of the stock's weakness this twelvemonth has seemingly been revolving astir Warren Buffett's exit.
The large propulsion connected this banal is the immense currency heap that the institution has accumulated.
The banal mightiness acquisition a dilatory patch, fixed the changes occurring, but the semipermanent imaginable is inactive there.
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Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) has agelong been synonymous with its legendary leader, Warren Buffett. The conglomerate precocious received a downgrade from KBW, citing concerns implicit Buffett's exit, arsenic good arsenic problems successful immoderate of its cardinal areas of business. Overall, I deliberation that immoderate pullback successful the banal is simply a buying opportunity. To deliberation that Warren Buffett has been the lone 1 making decisions astatine Berkshire Hathaway seems a spot naive. His cohort is bully astatine what they do. Moreover, the happening that gets ignored astir Buffett's succession is however overmuch wealth the Oracle of Omaha is leaving connected the array for investment. Buffett has amassed a elephantine currency pile, which gives the institution a large woody of maneuverability successful the coming years successful presumption of concern options.

According to CNBC, KBW's downgrade reflects mounting worries astir Berkshire's quality to prolong show without Buffett's dependable hand. The steadfast pointed to ongoing challenges successful its halfway operating units, which see its railroad part and its security businesses. While the steadfast could surely beryllium close that determination are headwinds facing these areas of Berkshire's business, they aren't needfully permanent, and they don't alteration the cardinal spot of Berkshire's diversified model.

A premier illustration present was the show displayed successful the 3rd quarter. Despite concerns from KBW, Berkshire's astir caller results, which came retired connected Saturday, connote bully things. Berkshire reported a whopping 34% summation successful operating nett wrong its wholly owned businesses. These see Berkshire's security businesses and railroads. One of the main areas of spot was security underwriting income. This cardinal country for Berkshire saw income summation to $2.37 billion.

Some look to hide that Buffett hasn't been making decisions successful a vacuum. His successors person been softly shaping the company's operations for years. Greg Abel, Buffett's chosen heir for the CEO role, has overseen Berkshire's non-insurance operations since 2018. Abel has earned Buffett's spot and the spot of galore wrong the company. The thought that Berkshire's occurrence vanishes the infinitesimal Buffett leaves seems a spot short-sighted.