apple.news: Greg Abel Has Been Leading Berkshire for 100 Days. Things Are Already Changing.

“On several workdays each week, Abel climbs into a car waiting outside his home in Des Moines, Iowa, and makes the two-hour commute to Omaha. Abel has no immediate plans to move to Omaha, and will likely live in Iowa at least until his son graduates from high school in a few years, according to people familiar with the matter.
It isn’t uncommon for Abel to be in different states within the same day. A large part of Abel’s workweek is spent crisscrossing the country on a corporate plane managed by NetJets, a Berkshire unit, to visit with the managers of Berkshire’s businesses.
In his Feb. 28 annual letter to shareholders, his first, Abel made clear there are positions he considers “core,” such as Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola and Moody’s. People familiar with Berkshire’s investments said Abel has already unloaded the stocks managed by Todd Combs, who recently decamped for JPMorgan Chase. He was one of two investment managers Buffett had recruited. Abel is unlikely to hire anyone to help manage the portfolio, according to the people.
Berkshire employees and shareholders have known Abel would succeed Buffett since Munger let it slip during Berkshire’s 2021 annual meeting in Omaha. But the timing of the succession remained a mystery through Munger’s death in November 2023 and until this past May, when Buffett, 95, declared on the same stage that he intended to retire at year-end.
“That is really when the transition started,” Abel said.”