Legendary investor Warren Buffett revealed the reason for his stunning decision to step down after 60 years leading Berkshire Hathaway — and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise: his age.
While his announcement earlier this month may have shocked the business world, it was a no-brainer for the 94-year-old Oracle of Omaha, who tapped Greg Abel, 62, as his successor.
“The difference in energy level and just how much he could accomplish in a 10-hour day compared to what I could accomplish in a 10-hour day — the difference became more and more dramatic,” Buffett told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
“He just was so much more effective at getting things done, making changes in management where they were needed, helping people that needed help someplace, but just all kinds of ways.”
Buffett — who turned the struggling textile maker he took over in 1965 into a behemoth $1.16 trillion firm over the course of his career — admitted that his balance has become wobbly on occasion.
He also said he found it more difficult to recall a person’s name and quipped about his failing eyesight, saying the newspapers he read seemed like they were printed with too little ink.
While his health is “fine” and he “feel[s] good every day,” the longtime investor admitted that his age has finally snuck up on him.
“I didn’t really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90…But when you start getting old, it does become — it’s irreversible,” he said.
“There was no magic moment,” Buffett told the Journal. “How do you know the day that you become old?”
Abel, meanwhile, has shown “really great talent” as a manager and dealmaker, Buffett said.
“It was unfair, really, not to put Greg in the job,” he told the Journal. “The more years that Berkshire gets out of Greg, the better.”
Berkshire will get its first year with Abel starting Jan. 1, when he will assume the chief executive position and Buffett will continue his role as chairman. He has not set a timeline for how long he will remain chairman.
But the iconic investor, worth approximately $156.9 billion according to Forbes, joked that some things will stay the same at Berkshire — like his Omaha, Neb., office, for example.
“I’m not going to sit at home and watch soap operas,” he told the Journal with a laugh. “My interests are still the same.”
He still has a knack for making good investments, and a trademark calm during turbulent market jitters.
“I don’t have any trouble making decisions about something that I was making decisions on 20 years ago or 40 years ago or 60 years,” he told the Journal.
“I will be useful here if there’s a panic in the market because I don’t get fearful when things go down in price or everybody else gets scared.”