rewrite this title End of ‘The Berkshire Way’? Combs’ departure isn’t only big change as Buffett transition nears

(This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.)

Todd Combs’ surprise departure from Berkshire Hathaway got most of the attention when it was announced this week.

There were also, however, several additional personnel changes in Monday’s three-page news release that signal the company is moving toward a more conventional structure as Warren Buffett prepares to transfer his CEO title to Greg Abel in less than three weeks.

Combs is going to JPMorgan Chase next month to head a $10 billion “Strategic Investment Group” for the company’s new $1.5 trillion “Security and Resiliency Initiative” to help “companies enhance their growth, spur innovation and accelerate manufacturing, primarily in the United States.”

Combs has been on JPM’s board since 2016 but is leaving that post as he takes the new job.

In its news release, JPM’s Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon called Combs “one of the greatest investors and leaders I’ve known.”

In Berkshire’s announcement, Warren Buffett is quoted as saying “JPMorgan, as usually is the case, has made a good decision,” praising Combs for making “many great hires at GEICO.”

Combs, who is 54 years old, joined Berkshire in 2010 as a portfolio manager.

In 2020, he got an additional role as CEO of Geico, Berkshire’s auto insurer, adding to speculation he might become Buffett’s future successor.

At May’s annual meeting, insurance Chief Ajit Jain said Combs “has done a great job for us in terms of turning around” Geico’s operations, citing improvements in “matching rate to risk” and incorporating telematics, the electronic monitoring of how policyholders drive, in setting rates.

But Jain added, “I still think we need to do more in technology.”

The task of doing more in technology at Geico now belongs to its new CEO, Nancy Pierce, who moves up from chief operating officer. She’s been at the insurer since 1986, when she started as a claims associate.

The question of who will be assuming Combs’ duties as portfolio manager, however, is still open.

Buffett has been saying Abel will have overall responsibility for the portfolio, but it’s not clear how much of that responsibility will be delegated to the other portfolio manager, Ted Weschler.

Berkshire could also hire one or more additional portfolio managers and Buffett himself, in his role as chairman, could help fill the gap left by Combs.

Traditionally, Berkshire has been opaque about who’s been responsible for the smaller holdings in its portfolio and hasn’t said much about the portfolio managers’ track records.

In an email to Buffett Watch, Hudson Value Partners’ Christopher Davis urges Berkshire to “become more transparent about the roles and responsibilities of Abel and Wechsler in managing the public equity portfolio.

“We all love the ‘Berkshire way’, but there needs to be some concessions to the fact it is now a trillion-dollar enterprise undergoing its first leadership transition.”

Several facets of that transition are moving the company away from the famously decentralized “Berkshire way.”

Greg Abel has already been exercising more management oversight over the non-insurance operating companies than Buffett ever did.

Now some of them are getting an additional layer of management.

Adam Johnson, the chairman and CEO of NetJets, has been appointed to the newly created role of “President of the Consumer Products, Service and Retailing businesses of Berkshire Hathaway.”

Calling him an “accomplished leader with a proven ability to deliver long-term shareholder value,” Abel says in Monday’s news release that Johnson will “support the outstanding CEOs of our 32 consumer products, service and retailing businesses, and uphold Berkshire’s culture and values.”

The remaining non-insurance subsidiaries, including BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, and Pilot, will still be reporting directly to Abel.

Berkshire is also getting its first general counsel.

Michael O’Sullivan served in that role at Snap Inc. since 2017 after practicing law at Munger, Tolles & Olson for more than two decades.

Up until now, Berkshire has turned to outside law firms to handle its legal matters.

(I wouldn’t be surprised to see Berkshire add investor, media, and government relations departments to its notoriously low-overhead Omaha HQ at some point next year.

I don’t think, on the other hand, that Berkshire will be paying a dividend as long as Buffett continues to come into the office.)

Finally, in a more traditional transition, Chief Financial Officer Marc Hamburg will retire next June after 40 years at Berkshire.

In the news release, Buffett said Hamburg has been “indispensable” and “has done more for this company than many of our shareholders will ever know.”

His successor will be Berkshire Hathaway Energy CFO Charles Chang.

It’s a lot of change for a company that hasn’t changed much over the years.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Meyer Shields told the Wall Street Journal, “There’s so much emotional investment in the persistence of Berkshire as a culture that when you have decent-sized changes, that’s going to cause more worry than jubilation over the company’s dynamism. That’s not why people own Berkshire Hathaway.”

KBW downgraded Berkshire shares to “underperform” earlier this year, in part due to Buffett’s impending departure.

Both the A and B shares weathered the storm pretty well this week, falling almost 1%, although they are still down more than 7% from their all-time highs in May, just before Buffett revealed he would step down as CEO at the end of the year.

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AUDIENCE MEMBER: What has been the single best investment of your careers?

WARREN BUFFETT: Probably, in terms of what it’s done already and where it’s going to go over time, probably the single best investment was the first half of GEICO, which we purchased for $40 million. Now the second half cost us 2 billion. I’m glad I didn’t buy it in thirds. (Laughter)

But, you know, that 40 million will — for half the company — will turn out very well.

But GEICO — some of our businesses have growth potential, some don’t. And we don’t require growth potential as part of a business.

If a business makes good money and we can use it to buy other businesses, one of the advantages of the Berkshire system is we have a tax efficient and kind of frictionless way of moving money to the best opportunities. And GEICO, internally, has still enormous possibilities for growth.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, but GEICO, after all, cost $2 billion for the second half and —

WARREN BUFFETT: Right.

CHARLIE MUNGER:  — a significant number of tens of millions for the first half.

Now the search expenses that brought us Ajit Jain, now there was an investment that really paid a dividend.

I can think of no higher return investment that we’ve ever made that was better than that one. (Applause)

And I think that’s a good life lesson. In other words, getting the right people into your system can frequently be more important than anything else. 

BRK.A stock price: $748,887.00

BRK.B stock price: $499.52

BRK.B P/E (TTM): 15.97

Berkshire market capitalization: $1,077,426,505,703

Berkshire Cash as of September 30: $381.7 billion (Up 10.9% from June 30)

Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $354.3 billion (Up 4.3% from June 30)

No Berkshire stock repurchases since May 2024.

(All figures are as of the date of publication, unless otherwise indicated)

Berkshire’s top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.

Holdings are as of September 30, 2025, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on November 14, 2025, except for:

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@cnbc.com. (Sorry, but we don’t forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)

If you aren’t already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire’s website.

— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch

(Correction: Fixes misspelling of Combs’ name.)