Andrew Bary

It looks like it will be Greg Abel's show at Berkshire Hathaway's 2026 annual meeting in Omaha.

The Omaha World-Herald reported Sunday that Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett won't be on stage with Berkshire executive Abel to answer shareholder questions. Abel, 62, is set to take over as CEO at the beginning of next year.

Buffett will be seated on the floor of the CHI Health Center arena in Omaha along with other Berkshire directors, the newspaper reported. Buffett will remain chairman while giving up the CEO role at the end of 2025. Buffett, 94, has led Berkshire for 60 years.

Buffett's daughter Susan, who is a member of the Berkshire board, told the newspaper that her father felt it was appropriate for Abel to be on stage without Warren Buffett given Abel's future role as CEO.

"I'm not going to be up there," she recalled him saying in revealing his decision to her. "I'm going to leave it to Greg."

Barron's has reached out to Berkshire for comment.

There has been some question about whether Buffett would be on stage at the next annual meeting in May 2026 after he surprised Berkshire investors by telling them at the end of the question and answer session at the annual meeting on May 3 that he would be stepping down as CEO at year-end.

Buffett relishes the shareholder meeting, and he answered questions for 4.5 hours at the recent gathering.

With Buffett's advancing age, the shareholder meeting has become the only time during the year that he answers questions at length. Berkshire doesn't hold quarterly conference calls like nearly every large company.

Many Berkshire investors would have liked to see Buffett on stage for another year to hear wisdom, life lessons, and Berkshire-related insights.

Some investors thought Buffett would agree to appear in 2026 on stage to help the city of Omaha, which generates considerable revenue from the huge, well-heeled crowd at the annual meeting. An estimated 40,000 shareholders and others attended the 2025 meeting.

It's likely that annual-meeting attendance will be smaller in 2026 without Buffett. Abel told the World Herald that he and Buffett wanted to let shareholders know now about the Q&A plan "so people come with the right expectation."

One benefit to an Abel-oriented Q&A session is that there likely will be more Berkshire-related questions. Many shareholders who would like to better understand the complex and diversified conglomerate and have been frustrated that many questions at the annual meeting are unrelated to the company.

One of the first questions at the 2025 meeting, for example, was about a hot-dog business that a shareholder thought Berkshire owned but is actually owned by a private equity firm Berkshire Partners. Then there were questions from teenagers of varying general interest, including one at the 2025 meeting from a young shareholder who pressed Buffett for a meeting in his Omaha office. Buffett declined.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2025 11:19 ET (15:19 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.