Key Takeaways
- What new Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A BRK.B CEO Greg Abel may do differently.
- Berkshire will probably bail on Kraft Heinz KHC. Here’s what other stocks it might sell.
- The acquisition that Berkshire Hathaway should make.
- Why Berkshire still won’t pay a dividend despite its massive cash hoard.
- Whether Berkshire Hathaway stock is a good investment today.
In this bonus episode of The Morning Filter podcast, co-host Susan Dziubinski talks with Morningstar senior analyst Gregg Warren about Berkshire Hathaway now that Warren Buffett has stepped down as CEO. They cover where new CEO Greg Abel might focus his efforts first, how likely it is that Berkshire will make an acquisition in the near future, and why the firm won’t pay a dividend anytime soon (all returns in this article are measured on a US dollar basis).
They also discuss if Berkshire will offload its big stake in Kraft Heinz, if the firm is likely to sell more of its stakes in Apple AAPL and Bank of America BAC, and which stocks might be cut from its public portfolio. Is Berkshire still a good stock to buy today without Buffett in charge? Tune in to find out.
Have an idea for a bonus episode? Send it to themorningfilter@morningstar.com.
Transcript
Susan Dziubinski: Hello, I’m Susan Dziubinski. Welcome to a bonus episode of The Morning Filter podcast. Now, as our regular viewers and listeners know, we’re doing some bonus episodes of the podcast, sitting down with various Morningstar experts to discuss topics that you’ve told us you want to hear more about. So, if you have an idea for a bonus episode, send it to us via our email address, which is themorningfilter@morningstar.com.
Now, today’s bonus episode is focusing on one of my colleague Dave Sekera’s stock picks from earlier this year. That’s Berkshire Hathaway BRK.A BRK.B. Now, it’s a good time to be talking about Berkshire. With Warren Buffett stepping down as CEO at the end of last year, there are plenty of questions about what the future could bring. And today, I’m joined by someone who knows more about Berkshire Hathaway than most anyone. And that’s Gregg Warren. Gregg is a senior analyst with Morningstar, and he covers Berkshire Hathaway. Well, Greg, thank you for being here. And welcome back to The Morning Filter. We usually talk to you after Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, but we’ve got a lot to talk about. So we didn’t want to wait until then to bring you in.
Gregg Warren: Well, thanks for having me, Susan.
Dziubinski: Yeah. So we were talking before we started filming, and I said to you, I can’t remember a time when you were not Morningstar’s Berkshire Hathaway analyst. So how long have you been covering the company for us?
Warren: I believe our first report, or at least my first report, came out in December 2010. So we’re looking at, what, 15-plus years from there. So quite some time.
Dziubinski: Now, before the pandemic hit, you were one of three people that Berkshire had sort of hand-selected to be on the analyst panel at the annual meeting. And so you had the opportunity to ask Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger some questions. Why do you think you were one of the lucky three?
Warren: Well, it was a process for Berkshire. They actually introduced the analyst panel in 2012. They already had a journalist panel in place, but they wanted to bring some analysts in. I think the key for Buffett was he was trying to get more company-specific questions into the mix. Because the Q&A up until then had been really shareholder-driven, and it could veer off topic a lot. So from that perspective, that was his goal. Unfortunately, that first year, they bought in three sell-side insurance analysts, and they really got into the weeds. And it really a lot of complaints from shareholders. It was just nitpicky, really sort of things that weren’t really sort of where Buffett had hoped to go with the conversation. So that second year, he brought in a buy-side analyst. One of the sell-side analysts he brought back, and they were going to rotate. And then he brought in a Berkshire Bear.
Now, unfortunately, the Berkshire Bear didn’t do himself any favors. He didn’t really ask tough questions, and he basically kind of grandstanded a bit. So that was kind of a failure in that regard. But the sell-side and the buy-side analyst being there was good. Now, in the middle of all this, we had been in communication with Berkshire, saying, look, we cover you. You’re familiar with our stuff. And they were like, OK, we’ll put you in the rotation with the insurance analyst. But then we just kept pressing and saying, look, we’re independent research. We’d fit a nice niche between the buy-side and the sell-side guys. And they took a chance on that in 2014. And we did a good enough job then, and continue to do a good, solid job, much like Jonathan Brandt did on the buy side, where we were getting asked back every year.
Now, it was a bit of a disappointment in our regards for them to sort of kill the panel. You know, some of it was covid-related. Some of it was just they wanted to make some changes. But as I look at it now, they no longer have the analyst panel. They no longer even have a journalist panel. So it’s almost like the value of the question and answer session is, in my view, sort of gone down a bit.
Dziubinski: So, given that you were a panelist, what are some of the things during your time going to the meeting and asking these questions, what sort of stood out to you about Warren and Charlie, maybe the most or maybe just about the meeting in general?
Warren: Well, we were always trying to avoid getting peanut brittle thrown at us from Charlie. I used to always tell Jonathan that I was like, look, my whole goal here is to, A, not ask a dumb question, and B, not ask the same question twice. So, you had to be diligent. You had to be focused. We would come to the meeting with anywhere between 10 and 25 questions, even though we only got six each year.
But overall, I always felt it was a good, useful exercise as an analyst because here’s a company that very, very rarely talks to anybody. So you’re always looking for nuggets through conversations around with the press or at the meeting. And it was always our sort of goal to elicit those kind of nuggets from Charlie or from Warren. And we got quite a few over the years. So, it was always, in our view, a very useful exercise. Hopefully, as time goes on and they continue to do the meeting and it is sizable, I would like to see them bring the panel back.
Dziubinski: Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about last year’s annual meeting. And I know you and I were both in our respective homes, watching it and listening to it. And Warren sort of dropped the big news right at the end of the meeting in May 2025 that he was going to retire at the end of 2025. So were you surprised?
Warren: Yeah. Yeah. I think shocked would probably be more … I mean, everybody I talked to over there and everybody who was watching that I communicated with, they were all saying the same thing—we did not expect this. And he kept it pretty tight to the vest, which is impressive, given how things have had a knack of slipping out at some point or another. In fact, the fact that Abel is going to be CEO, Charlie Munger let slip at a meeting.
So it was impressive that they were able to keep it that quiet. But our feeling had always been that they would have to carry him out. Then he would be there working until he was done. And, so him coming out and saying, “Look, I’m stepping away” was kind of a shocker. He’s still going to be around. He’s still going to be in the offices. He’s still there as a sounding board for Greg. But it did surprise us to see sort of him make that announcement. But I also feel like, Greg’s what, 62 now, I think. So it’s probably important to make the change now because, I mean, his goal all along has been to have somebody there who’s going to be around for a long time.
Dziubinski: Right, and consistency.
Warren: Yeah. And continuing to sort of put this off. I mean, it just, it would sort of wear down that time frame.
Dziubinski: So let’s talk a little bit about Greg Abel, who has taken over as CEO right at the end of last year. So what would you say are his strengths? And then, is there anything that you think that he might do differently?
Warren: He’s different than Buffett. He’s an operations guy. And I think at this point in Berkshire’s lifecycle, they need an operations guy. Buffett was never interested in overseeing the operations. He was not interested in getting down in the weeds and understanding how the businesses operated. He was content with getting updates regularly from the managers and the capital coming up from below. So, different management style to begin with. And again, like I said, I think that’s what Berkshire needs at this point. There are definitely places within the organization where I think they would benefit from having somebody who’s more operations-focused helping to improve things.
And Greg’s always been, in our view, a little bit more of an alpha personality, a little bit more driven. Buffett is less confrontational, prefers to sort of be in the background. So it will change. And like I said, I think Berkshire needs to do that. Because we’ve gone from this historical 60-plus years where Buffett ran the show, built up this very, very large business, had a certain way of doing things. And that worked, for the most part, for a long time. But it’s gotten to the point now where there’s just so much excess capital on the books. And there’s the environment in which they’re operating has shifted, or the way they’d like to operate, which is continue to acquire companies and actually make big-scale investments in stocks. It’s a lot harder for them to do that than it was, say, 20, 30 years ago.
Dziubinski: Sure. Let’s talk a little bit about one of their larger investments, and that’s Kraft Heinz KHC. Now, earlier this year, Berkshire filed paperwork sort of indicating that, hey, market, we might get rid of our substantial stake in Kraft Heinz stock. No promise, but by filing the paperwork, that’s sort of a big signal that they might. So before we talk a little bit about what might happen with that, give us a brief reminder about, first of all, how big that Kraft Heinz stake is and how Berkshire first got involved with Kraft Heinz.
Warren: Yeah, it’s still about 28% of the equity. So that’s how much they own. And Berkshire came by that by, originally, back in 2013, they joined up with 3G Capital and bought out Heinz Foods, which was stand-alone at that point. And their initial stake included preferred stock, plus cash for the equity. In 2015, 3G engineered the merger with Kraft Foods, which gave us the Kraft Heinz business. And it seemed like everything was all right. Berkshire did have to sort of give up the preferred stock within a few years. That was a nice 9% yield on that, which is disappointing to sort of give up. So everything’s been on the stock since then.
Unfortunately, 3G’s way of running businesses sometimes can starve them for resources. And they did a great job of sort of improving the margins, but at the same time, they cut so much to the bone that it created problems for them. And the packaged-food industry continues to change. So the dynamics of the business were not keeping up with what was going on within the industry. And, it’s even though last year, him and Abel were quite vocal about some of the changes Kraft was proposing, it wasn’t the first time. I mean, they’ve written the company down a few times over the years. So their cost basis, I think, is $8.5 billion right now.
Dziubinski: To your point, both Buffett and Abel were in the media last year saying they were dissatisfied with that investment and how it had turned out. And then Kraft Heinz announced that it was going to split. And I remember Buffett coming out and saying, yeah, well, that’s not going to solve it. He said it more politely than that, but that’s really not going to solve the problems. So then Kraft Heinz recently backtracked and said, we’re not going to split after all. So, given all of this and given what Greg Abel said in the shareholder letter that came out over last weekend, do you think they’re going to sell?
Warren: I think they’re sellers. I think the issue is it’s been a slow-motion separation. I think if you go back five, six years ago, Buffett was out there saying, hey, if 3G ever decided to sell, we’d be buyers. And then 3G was selling and they weren’t buyers. And then you get to the notion of, a couple of years back, he was like, this was a mistake, it didn’t pan out the way we thought. And then last year, I mean, last year, even before the announcement, they were going to split the company, Berkshire pulled out of the board.
So this has been this confidence in Kraft Heinz has been slowly deteriorating over the years. So that’s, that’s why I think even now, I mean, they did the filing, what, in early January, the CEO, the new CEO came out in early February and said, hey, we’re putting a pause on this. I think they knew that they were probably going to put a pause on it. I don’t think it changed their mind. I think at this point, if I looked at the portfolio, it would probably be one of the highest likely stock to be trimmed or sold in the near term.
Dziubinski: All right. Well, then perfect segue into my next question, Greg. Thanks for that. So you wrote a great stock analyst note after Berkshire had filed this paperwork about Kraft Heinz. And you had a great little line in there, which was something along the lines of Kraft Heinz wasn’t going to be the only change we’d see in the public portfolio. You were expecting more streamlining to come. What makes you think that?
Warren: I think for two reasons. One, just from the fact that the portfolio is huge. And we’ve already seen Berkshire willing to trim back stakes in Apple AAPL and Bank of America BAC the past couple of years. In fact, I think they’ve reduced the Apple stake by three quarters and Bank of America by 60% just in the past few years. So, there’s a willingness there. I think it was what, 313 billion total, I think, if you include the equity investment holdings at the end of last year, there’s definitely a case to be made that if Abel wants a portfolio that’s a bit more focused and a bit easier to sort of pay attention to that it makes sense to trim back some holdings. So I think from that perspective, that’s one.
I think the other thing is Todd Combs is gone now. He left at the end of last year, and they’re likely to continue to sell off holdings that he had. And if you think about the holdings that he was probably responsible for, I mean, Visa V, Mastercard MA, probably jump out right away because those were bought in 2011. Those were holdings he had when he was at Castle Point before he joined Berkshire. He’s always been focused on financial services, fintech, value stocks. I can’t remember what the other one I was thinking about that could likely fall into that realm. But overall, there’s other holdings within the portfolio that we’re likely to see fall off as the year progresses. We saw this, oh, was it 20 years ago when Lou Simpson left because he was managing the Geico portfolio. And it basically fell under Buffett’s auspices, and he slowly, gradually traded off some of those holdings.
Dziubinski: Now, you mentioned Bank of America and Apple, and Berkshire released its fourth-quarter 2025 13F a couple of weeks ago. And that, of course, covered that final quarter, where Buffett was still CEO. And they continued to scale back in Apple, though it’s still the largest holding, continued to scale back in Bank of America. Do you expect these two stocks to remain in the portfolio over time, maybe just at smaller positions than they are, rather than the number one and number two?
Warren: It depends on your time frame.
Dziubinski: Yeah, that’s fair.
Warren: I don’t think they’re averse to selling. And I think what people need to focus on, too, is why are they selling? And in my view, yes, it’s building up cash that’s going to a big reserve that Greg can use, sort of a “break glass in case of emergency” big fund. I’ve always felt that way. I always felt the buildup in the cash and the balance sheet was to give him a lot more flexibility. But I think there’s also some tax considerations going on here. I pointed this out a few years ago, when they first started selling Apple. Berkshire is subject to the 15% corporate alternative minimum tax. And if they don’t pay an effective tax rate more than 15% in cash taxes over a three-year running period, they will be taxed on their unrealized gains. And basically, what they’re doing is they’re realizing gains to ensure that they get over that hump over that time frame. And that’s why, that, in my opinion, is the main reason why we see them selling off Apple and Bank of America. Also because they’re sitting on such huge, unrealized gains on them. Even after all the selling they’ve done, and we’re still talking about billions. I think it’s like almost 50 billion on Apple and $21 billion or something like that on Bank of America, they’re sitting on unrealized gains. So from that perspective, it makes sense for them to sort of approach it from that angle. And these are names that help them in that regard. I mean, it’s harder for them to, say, go after and sell Coke KO or American Express AXP or Moody’s MCO, because the cost basis on those are so low.
Dziubinski: Right, what does the complexion look like right now from an asset-allocation standpoint, so to speak, between the public portfolio, cash, and then sort of the private companies?
Warren: I had the numbers in my head before I came in here. I think cash and T-bills right now, so basically cash equivalents, is about USD 373 billion. The investment portfolio, I think we said, was about USD 320 billion—in that realm—the equity. And then the bonds are de minimis. They’re like USD 18 billion. So you’ve got a cash portfolio that’s larger than your invested portfolio in equities and stocks. And I think, all in, I think it was like USD 705 billion. I think that’s the number I had in my head. So that’s all liquid assets that are available to them. On the private side, it’s a … We still haven’t done our updates for end of 4Q, but prior to that, it was about USD 455 million. So you add those two together, it’s USD 1.15 million, or I should say, billion. I’ve said million.
Dziubinski: OK. So then let’s talk a little bit about sort of the private company stake, which we don’t talk quite as much about. Do you expect changes there with Greg Abel in charge? I guess those would be harder changes to make in general because they own the companies outright.
Warren: I mean, we expect to see changes. I mean, like, even though he didn’t say it in the letter, BNSF has to adopt precision scheduling. He said he was disappointed with the gap in profitability between them and his largest peers, which means the Union Pacific UNP. And that’s what we’ve been saying for five-plus years now. So that will be coming down the pike. And there’s definitely other areas where I felt for many years that Berkshire’s managers may be harming themselves in the long run by focusing more on sending capital up to Berkshire to the corporate than delving into sort of their long-term needs. I mean, we saw that with Geico, where the company underinvested in their tech stack, their ability to sort of improve and upgrade their technology systems to allow them to run telematics. And it went on for such a long time until Ajit Jain came in there and basically was like, we need to fix that. And even then, it still took three or four years for them to sort of get that right.
So from that perspective, I mean, those are things I think he’s probably identified because he started overseeing the noninsurance businesses in early 2018. And we’re—talk to the managers, figure it out where they were, what their focus was. But I think he’s always sort of held back on pushing anything harder. Because really, he didn’t have the full authority because Buffett was still in charge. But now that he is in charge, I would expect to see some of that coming down a little bit harder.
Dziubinski: Now, last December, and you mentioned this, that Todd Combs, who had been overseeing Geico, was leaving Berkshire for a new position at JPMorgan Chase JPM. So what did you make of that? And are you expecting to maybe see, I know, I think their CFO moved out, retired as well. So talk a little bit about executive changes at Berkshire, aside from, of course, Warren Buffett.
Warren: I mean, with Mark Hamburg, it doesn’t surprise me. I mean, he’s been there forever.
Dziubinski: And he was the CFO, right?
Warren: Yeah. So his departure doesn’t surprise me. And basically Abel’s bringing in somebody he knows. It’s the guy who was running the books over at Berkshire Hathaway Energy for a long, long time. So from that perspective, that wasn’t too surprising. Todd leaving was a bit of a surprise. I thought he did a fantastic job at Geico. I don’t think he got enough credit from investors for what a monumental task he had to deal with. Because if you don’t remember, he took over in December of 2019. And at that point, Geico was already dealing with several years of poor underwriting performance based on poor decisions they made. They got too aggressive going after market share, underwrote a lot of business that they shouldn’t have. And it basically hurt them on the loss ratio front for many years. And so when he came in, he was going to target that.
And then, lo and behold, covid hit. And the whole US auto insurance market got turned on and said for a number of years. I mean, we’re only really now sort of getting back to sort of normalized results. But it’s taken, I mean, auto insurance prices are up 55% in the past, since the end of 2019. So from that perspective, I mean, they had to do that. Because the cost of replacement vehicles, the cost of replacement parts, even the amount of incidences, amount of accidents, the severity of accidents and stuff like that, went spiked for a number of years. Some of that’s starting to come down, but the inflation is still there. I mean, the inflation didn’t go away.
So, we’ll have to see how things pan out from here. I mean, it would be nice to have him sort of in the helm. Because we’re looking at a, probably a multiyear sort of declining price environment for this, because the state regulators at this point, are starting to look at the profitability of the industry, and they’re calling for pricing to come down. So from that perspective, it’d be interesting to see what happens. But, I mean, he hadn’t been as focused on the investment portfolio in that time. And he’s been sitting on the board at J.P. Morgan for a number of years. He’s very close with Jamie Dimon. So he got an offer that he just couldn’t refuse. It’s a good opportunity for him. So I understand why, but at the same time, I think it’s just one less good advisor that Abel will have around to help him.
Dziubinski: Fair. Let’s talk a little bit about the cash hoard that seems to be growing every time we get a new earnings report or 13F to look at. Now, of course, Berkshire hasn’t bagged a big private deal in a long time. What do you think of that? Like given, would you expect there to be more private deals with Greg Abel in charge? I mean, or is it just … do you think he’s going to be, I hate to say it this way, but like, less picky than Warren Buffett would have been? Like, what could be a catalyst here for that?
Warren: Berkshire’s had a tough time the past 10 to 15 years, mainly because Buffett has had a very sort of strict discipline and criteria when it comes to doing acquisitions. And his modus operandi always has been, he puts a price on the table. That’s it. He doesn’t renegotiate. He doesn’t rework it or anything else. And that’s cost them some deals over the years. And the problem is, in that time frame, from the financial crisis till now, private equity, private capital has raised tons and tons and tons of money. And when you’re dealing with those guys who don’t have a problem pushing the envelope when it comes to price and deals and stuff like that, it just gets harder to sort of get anything done. Now, they’ve managed to do some things over time. I mean, Allegheny AWRY, in my opinion, was a good deal. The OxyChem deal looks like it was a pretty good deal last year. Precision Castparts, not so much. So, I think from that perspective, we’ll have to see what happens. But I was a little disappointed with the letter and the fact that he dismissed one deal that would basically knock a big chunk of cash off the books.
Dziubinski: Yeah. Let’s talk about that shareholder letter. So that came out over the weekend. I read it. Of course, you read it and wrote about it. And it was a very different letter than the letters we would get from Warren Buffett every year. So talk about it.
Warren: Well, all I can say is 18 pages. It was a lot to sift through. I feel like he did a good job from the outset of explaining Berkshire, what has made it successful, what’re the core priorities, the core values, the culture, the things that they should be focusing on, capital allocation decisions, risk management operational excellence, a lot of things that in a way, looking to sort of just placate investors and say, “Look, I understand this business, I know what needs to be done,” and I think he needed to do that.
But there were some areas where I was like, Oh, I wish you hadn’t committed yourself that one way or another. One of them is basically saying, we’re not interested in buying another class one railroad, which, I think, is boxing yourself in the corner a bit. Because, in our view, they need to. If Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern NSC get together and have one huge transcontinental railroad, they’ll be able to bypass Chicago. They’ll be able to bypass Houston. They’ll be able to offer better service to customers shipping stuff out of the West Coast ports and vice versa. And BNSF will be at a disadvantage. And I think that they should be looking harder at CSX CSX. I mean, yeah, granted, it’s probably going to cost them USD 90 billion to acquire it, if not a little bit more. But it would, A, reduce the cash on the balance sheet, would help them in that regard. And B, would ensure that they weren’t going to fall behind significantly relative to Union Pacific. So I was a little disappointed with that. And the other thing is the idea of a dividend.
Dziubinski: Yeah, I wanted to talk about that, because, boy, wouldn’t a dividend help reduce the cash? And that was something that you and I have talked about in the past, is something that, not just you, but a lot of people thought would be more likely once Buffett wasn’t CEO, because he was always very opposed to paying a dividend. And Greg Abel came out in that shareholder letter and basically said, don’t hold your breath. There won’t be a dividend anytime soon.
Warren: I think my comments were he just basically threw a dividend off the table. But I don’t know. I mean, I think Warren’s reason for not giving a dividend for all those years was, look, we can earn more with the retained capital. Instead, our shareholders can. And for a long time, that was true. Past 15-plus years, I wouldn’t say that. And I think that what kept him from ultimately changing his mind and actually initiating one was that basically we wanted to leave that for the next guys. He didn’t want to take a tool out of the toolbox that they could have if they needed to basically keep shareholders in place.
That said, initiating dividend commits you. And you have to keep paying it on a regular basis if that’s what you do. Yes, you could do a special dividend. That is an option. But then you leave shareholders wondering, well, when’s the next one? But if you gave me this because you said you had too much excess capital and now you have more capital than you did before … it just creates a lot of other issues. So, it’s fair to say that he’s going to sit on it for now, but it seemed a bit more dismissive than it needed to be in his verbiage. And and that’s why I said, I mean, it seemed like he spent more time focusing on toeing the company line, as far as what Berkshire has done historically, then maybe sort of carving out, this is what I would potentially look at down the road.
Dziubinski: And as you pointed out, maybe that’s something that it’s appropriate for him to be doing.
Warren: It’s appropriate right now, but it’s also easier. Because Berkshire’s not struggling. And, you know, basically, I’m not sure where David was when he was recommending earlier this year, but Berkshire’s a safe haven stock. When the markets go into the crappers, I mean, basically, it’s a good defensive stock that people like to have. And having $373 billion in cash really helps. So from those perspectives, I don’t feel like he felt the need to do anything dramatic. But I would just be hopeful to hear things from him that would sort of indicate that, look, things are going to change. Because Berkshire, for a while now, we’ve been saying, has to evolve from being a reinvestment machine, which it was for a long time, to being a returning cash shareholders machine, because basically it’s kind of run its course.
Dziubinski: Now, talk a little bit about valuation in Berkshire today. You mentioned Dave recommended Berkshire. It was in January at some point. So I think at that point it was slightly undervalued. How does it look today when we’re typing this?
Warren: It’s still slightly undervalued. I think based on today’s prices, it’s about 6% below our fair value estimate. I think we’re at 765,000 on the Class A’s and I think 510 on the B’s. So it is a little bit undervalued there. If you look at price/book multiples. It’s trading about one, five times last year’s, which is about where it has historically. So it’s not anything really to jump up and down about. I mean, it’s a slight discount, but it’s not a huge discount. But I think part of that, too, is just sort of where we are on the cycle.
Dziubinski: Right. And so, sort of, all things being equal, it’s a little undervalued. I mean, do you think with Greg Abel at the helm? What we know today about Berkshire—I mean, do you still think it’s a good defensive investment for people?
Warren: Yeah, I think it’s still a good, I think it’s still a good holding. And I think there’s still things that can be improved. I can’t remember the numbers he put out there, but I think it was like a 1 percentage point increase in the operating ratio of BNSF would increase earning or their operating earnings by like 230 million or something like that. So, I mean, there’s definitely ways for them to sort of improve different parts of the business and everything else. And again, it’s the way I look at it is: He’s now free to make changes that he might have been looking at when he was vice chairman, overseeing a lot of stuff.
I think Ajit Jain was probably in a better position than Abel was because he took over the insurance operations the same time in early 2018. But Jain basically went in there and started knocking some heads and started pushing for change within a few of the insurance operations. But that’s because he had 30-plus years running it, and he was Warren’s trusted insurance guru. So Warren was never going to contest. Nobody was ever going to go complain to Warren about something that Ajit was doing. It was on the other side, even more, I mean, the cornucopia of companies that he was overseeing, and the amount of companies and the relationships that had been built—Buffett buying these from family members and stuff like that. I think that posed a different sort of scenario for Abel. But I think now, I mean, he’s the guy, he’s in charge. Buffett’s already said, look, you need something, you got to talk to him.
Dziubinski: Right. Well, Greg, thank you so much for your time. We could talk all day about Berkshire. Really appreciate seeing you, and we’ll have you back sometime soon to talk about Berkshire.
Warren: Thanks.
Dziubinski: So, for those of you who’d like more information about Berkshire Hathaway, you can find links to some related content in our show notes. And, of course, you can read Greg’s full analysis of the company on Morningstar.com. I hope you’ll join Dave Sekera and I every Monday for The Morning Filter podcast at 9 a.m. Eastern, 8 a.m. Central. Happy investing.
