- Known more as a dealmaker than a stock-picker, Greg Abel quietly rose through the ranks at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B +1.5%), (BRK.A +1.7%) through the energy side of the business.
- He was long seen as the most likely to become Berkshire Hathaway CEO after Warren Buffett. In 2015, Buffett's business partner and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charlie Munger called Abel as a potential successor to Oracle of Omaha.
- Today, it's official. Buffett told CNBC that Abel is next in line. "The directors are in agreement that if something were to happen to me tonight, it would be Greg who'd take over tomorrow morning," he said.
- Abel is more known for building up Berkshire's energy and utilities empire and for deal-making rather than for stock-picking or pithy comments on markets and the economy. He helped with the acquisitions of Nevada utility NV Energy and an electric-transmission company in his native Alberta, Canada.
- And unlike Buffett, Abel prefers to stay out of the spotlight, according to a 2015 profile of him in the Wall Street Journal, which describes him as "an astute deal maker, with an easygoing manner similar to other senior Berkshire executives." He rarely gives interviews to the media.
- In a 2013 video message, Buffett called Abel a "first-class human being — There's a lot of smart people in this world but some of them do some very dumb things. He's a smart guy who will never do a dumb thing."
- Buffett has never given any indication that he plans to retire. The company's other succession plans remain in place, Reuters reported. His son Howard is expected to become non-executive chairman, while Todd Combs and Ted Weschler are in line to become chief investment officer.
- In January 2018, Abel became vice chairman for the company's non-insurance operations, the same time that Ajit Jain, now 69, became vice chairman of insurance operations. At the time, Berkshire watchers figured that Jain or Abel would be Buffett's successor.
- Abel's younger age, though, gave him the edge. "They’re both wonderful guys. The likelihood of someone having a 20-year runway though makes a real difference," Buffett told CNBC.
- The 58-year-old executive started his career as a chartered accountant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco. In 1992, he joined geothermal electricity producer CalEnergy. That company was acquired by MidAmerican Energy in 1999, and Berkshire took a controlling interest in MidAmerican later that year.
- Abel was named CEO of MidAmerican in 2008; the company was renamed Berkshire Hathaway Energy in 2014.
- When he takes over as CEO he'll be in charge of the conglomerate's decentralized culture over a sprawling collection of businesses — from Fruit of the Loom underwear, See's Candies, and Geico insurance to jet parts maker Precision Castparts, BNSF railroad, and chemicals manufacture Lubrizol.