Maryam Omidi, Financial News, reports:
David Sokol’s surprise resignation from Berkshire Hathaway this week has reignited the debate over Warren Buffett’s successor.
- Agence France Press/Getty Images
There has been much already been written on:
* Todd Combs, the former manager of hedge fund Castle Point Capital
* Ajit Jain, who heads Berkshire’s reinsurance division
* Matthew Rose, head of the firm’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad subsidiary
•Tony Nicely, who has built Berkshire’s Geico property insurance unit into one of the largest U.S. car insurers
But with Buffett’s top lieutenant, Sokol, out of the picture, it looks as if there’s a new contender in the running: Gregory Abel, who is far more elusive than his former boss. A search through news archives reveals just a few mentions of him.
“He’s been below the radar because Sokol was so ahead of him,” Andrew Kilpatrick, author of a book about Buffett, told Bloomberg News.
According to Bloomberg, 48-year-old Abel, who as former chief executive officer of Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings, was Sokol’s second-in-command, has been promoted been to chairman.
But he does get a lot praise in Buffett’s last few annual letters to his shareholders, The 80-year-old Oracle of Omaha heaped equal praise on both Sokol and his protégée for delivering strong profits. This year he lauded the pair for “outstanding results” after MidAmerican’s profits rose 7% to $1.2 billion in 2010. The year before, he described both as “terrific managers”.
“Ten years of working with Dave, Greg and Walter [Scott] have reinforced my original belief: Berkshire couldn’t have better partners,” he wrote. “They are truly a dream team.” In 2008, Buffett said both Sokol and Abel knew no other way to operate other than in a “first-class” manner.
Abel joined Berkshire in 2000 and, along with Sokol, has been integral to growing Berkshire subsidiary MidAmerican through a trail of acquisitions of natural gas producers in both the US and the UK. Eight years later he was named chief executive and Sokol took over as chairman.
Outside of the office, Abel is on the Drake University board of trustees, the executive board of the Mid-Iowa Council Boy Scouts of America, and the board of the American Football Coaches Foundation.
Does Buffett really know those under him? One has to wonder what kind of character other’s in his employ posess. The Sokol affair reminds me more of AIG or GoldmanSacs style of “leadership”. Let’s hope this isn’t the case.