Shareholders started lining up at midnight outside a Nebraska arena for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, but the crowd was noticeably smaller as Greg Abel ran the gathering for the first time. The arena was about half full just before it began, a sharp drop from recent years when more than 40,000 people came to hear Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
Abel’s debut as the face of Berkshire comes after Buffett gave up the CEO title in January, though the 95-year-old still serves as chairman. The company, whose holdings include Geico, Pacificorp and BNSF railroad along with a wide spread of manufacturers, retail and service businesses, is entering a new era with far less spectacle attached to its annual ritual.
For longtime shareholders, the smaller turnout was part practical and part symbolic. Chris Bloomstran said he missed Buffett and Munger’s old show, but added that for many investors the meeting is still about hearing what the businesses are doing. Bob Robotti was more direct, saying he was there to network with other people and that Berkshire’s leaders should not be saying anything shocking because they are generally consistent with how they operate.
That consistency is the point, and it is also the reason investors are unlikely to hear a dramatic shift. Abel has been with Berkshire for more than 25 years and had already been managing the company’s non-insurance businesses for nearly eight years before his promotion, giving him a long runway before taking the top job. He has also made a few administrative changes to build a team around him and has promised to preserve the culture that lets the chief executives of Berkshire’s subsidiaries run their day-to-day operations largely on their own.
Buffett’s presence will still matter, but the center of gravity has moved. He was the central draw at these meetings for decades, and Munger’s death in 2023 left the event with one less icon. For now, the question is not whether Berkshire Hathaway stock will be jolted by a surprise from the meeting hall; it is how quickly shareholders accept that the company’s most famous stage is now being run by someone else.
