Berkshire had a market capitalisation of about US$520 billion in 2020. Today, its market value is around US$1.11 trillion ($1.44 trillion). Its stock has more than doubled over five years. Berkshire is now the world’s eighth-largest listed company. Six of those ahead of Nebraska-based conglomerate are from the Magnificent Seven tech giants. The other is Aramco, the Saudi oil behemoth.
Five years ago, on the eve of billionaire investor CEO Warren Buffett’s 90th birthday, I wrote in this column that “there will never be another Buffett in our lifetime or another conglomerate like Berkshire for decades to come”. Buffett and his late partner Charlie Munger “built a legendary cash machine that is unlikely to be replicated anytime soon,” I wrote. I mentioned that the 90th birthday landmark was just a day, and the “Sage of Omaha” wasn’t about to retire yet and, indeed, would most likely go on for five years or more.
I was not far off the mark. On May 3, at the “Woodstock of Capitalism”, the Nebraska festival also known as Berkshire Hathaway’s annual general meeting, Buffett announced that he would step down as CEO and hand over the reins to vice-chairman Greg Abel, his long-anointed successor, at the year’s end. He has since announced that he will remain chairman when Abel, a Canadian who has headed Berkshire’s non-insurance operations for years, starts running the whole conglomerate.
