Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has said that vice-chairman Greg Abel would likely be his successor if he were to step down.

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"The directors are in agreement that if something were to happen to me tonight, it would be Greg who'd take over tomorrow morning," Buffett was quoted as saying to CNBC.

58-year-old Abel, a native of Canada, has been the vice-chairman since 2018 and oversees the non-insurance businesses of the company.

The statement also brings an end to the mystery surrounding Buffett's successor as the ace investor has never publicly hinted any plans to step down.

The name of Abel, who turned Hathaway Energy unit into a major US power provider, had been making rounds after vice-chairman Charlie Munger accidentally revealed his significance in the Hathaway set-up saying "Greg will keep the culture" while answering questions about the company's decentralised business model.

It was also significant that neither Munger nor Buffett said anything about vice-chairman Ajit Jain, who many had believed would take over the reins from Buffett. However, it seems likely that Abel’s relative youth tipped the scales in his favour.

Buffett transformed Berkshire from a failing textile company into a $628 billion conglomerate with such businesses as Geico auto insurance, the BNSF railroad, several industrial companies, Dairy Queen ice cream and See's Candies.

Succession has been a central issue for Berkshire since 2006 when Buffett, then 75, discussed it in his annual shareholder letter. Buffett's eldest son Howard is expected to become non-executive chairman, while investment managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler are in line to become chief investment officer.

Who is Greg Abel?

Abel has been with Berkshire for more than two decades, most recently as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Born in Edmonton, Canada, Abel said he grew up in a working-class neighbourhood and his father was a salesman, according to the CNBC report.

He loves hockey and presently serves on the board of directors of Hockey Canada Foundation. “I remember getting together with other neighbourhood kids as soon as we could after school. We played hockey nearly every day… and stayed out until we were called in for dinner,” CNBC quoted Abel as saying once in 2018.

During his growing-up years, Abel did odd jobs like delivering advertising flyers and filling fire extinguishers for Levitt Safety, the company where his father worked, the CNBC report mentioned.

He graduated from University of Alberta in 1984 with a degree in commerce.

After his graduation, he started working as an accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Then he joined CalEnergy which later became MidAmerican Energy. He went on to become the energy company’s president by 1999 when Berkshire acquired a controlling interest in MidAmerican. He became the CEO of MidAmerican in 2008 and the company later changed its name to Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE).

Abel oversees Berkshire’s energy holdings, including the coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, wind, solar, geothermal, and nuclear energy subsidiaries. BHE, which has over 23,800 employees, reported more than $20.9 billion in revenue in 2020.

Abel also serves on the board of directors for other firms like The Kraft Heinz Company (in which Berkshire owns a minority stake), and AEGIS Insurance Services.

Abel made a base salary of $16 million in both 2019 and 2020, along with annual bonuses of $3 million each, according to Berkshire’s SEC filings as reported by CNBC.

-with agency inputs

First Published:May 4, 2021 10:29 AM IST