Warren Buffett plans to keep writing a yearly letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders — but it’ll be in November, not May.
The famed investor, 95, who rocked the business world this spring by announcing he would step down as CEO at the end of this year, revealed he’s only “sort of” going quiet.
“I will continue talking to you and my children about Berkshire via my annual Thanksgiving message,” he wrote. “Berkshire’s individual shareholders are a very special group who are unusually generous in sharing their gains with others less fortunate. I enjoy the chance to keep in touch with you.”
Buffett also hailed his planned successor, Greg Abel. “I can’t think of a CEO, a management consultant, an academic, a member of government — you name it — that I would select over Greg to handle your savings and mine,” he wrote.
He revealed he would keep a “significant amount” of his Berkshire stock until his shareholders “develop the comfort with Greg that Charlie and I long enjoyed,” but added that he didn’t expect that process to take long.
In his letter, Buffett said he was grateful to have lived into his mid-90s, given he “nearly died” as a child in 1938, when he had to have an emergency appendectomy.
Much of Buffett’s latest missive serves as a love letter to his hometown of Omaha. He reflected on the lives of several close friends and business associates, including Charlie Munger and former Coca-Cola president Don Keough, and how Omaha played a role in all of their lives.
Buffett signed off by wishing a happy Thanksgiving to his readers — “even the jerks” — and reminding his shareholders to “thank America” for the opportunities it has provided, while acknowledging it can be “capricious and sometimes venal in distributing its rewards.”
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Buffett’s Thanksgiving gift
Buffett embraced his new Thanksgiving tradition for a third consecutive year. Expressing his admiration for his three children’s philanthropic work, he gifted Berkshire stock to their foundations.
The investor said that on Monday, he converted 1,800 of his Class A shares into 2.7 million Class B shares, worth about $1.35 billion. He pledged to distribute 1.5 million of those shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation — named after his late wife — and 400,000 shares to each of his kids’ foundations: the Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and NoVo Foundation.
Buffett has given away close to 60% of his Berkshire shares since pledging to give 99% of them to good causes in 2006.
The “Oracle of Omaha” and his late wife owned 508,998 A shares at the time of her death in 2004. All else being equal, if Buffett still owned all those shares, they’d be worth $381 billion. That would make him the world’s second-richest person behind Elon Musk, who’s estimated to be worth $449 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The legendary stock picker has charged his three kids with distributing his Berkshire shares, which make up 99.5% of his wealth, to worthy causes once he’s gone.
Buffett’s time as CEO is nearly over
Abel, Buffett’s chosen successor and Berkshire’s head of non-insurance operations, is set to succeed him as CEO in the new year with Buffett staying on as chairman.
Berkshire was a failing textile mill when Buffett acquired it in 1965. He has spent the past 60 years transforming it into one of the world’s largest companies with roughly $400 billion in annual revenue, 400,000 employees, and a $1 trillion market value.
Berkshire owns scores of businesses, including Geico, See’s Candies, and the BNSF Railway, and ranks as one of the largest shareholders of huge companies such as Apple, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola.
Between 1964 and 2024, Berkshire stock rose around 5,500,000%, trouncing the S&P 500’s 39,000% gain over the same period. Its compounded annual gain was about 20% — almost double the benchmark’s figure, Berkshire’s 2024 annual report shows.
News of Buffett’s impending departure has weighed on Berkshire stock: it has climbed 10% this year, trailing the S&P’s 16% gain.
Buffett, perhaps the world’s foremost bargain hunter, has balked at high prices for stocks and companies in recent years. Berkshire’s third-quarter earnings this month showed it was a net seller of stocks for a 12th straight quarter, and refrained from buying back any Berkshire shares for a fifth consecutive quarter.
The lack of spending contributed to its cash pile hitting yet another record, $358 billion, after subtracting Treasury payables.
