The new era at Berkshire Hathaway is officially underway, and the first major move is a direct bet on the company itself.
After a nearly two-year hiatus dating back to May 2024, newly minted CEO Greg Abel announced that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A/BRK.B) has officially resumed repurchasing its own shares. More importantly, Abel just made a massive personal statement to Wall Street about his conviction in the conglomerate’s valuation.
💰 THE CAPITAL DEPLOYMENT: Berkshire is currently sitting on a staggering $373.3 billion cash fortress.
- The Buyback Resumption: Abel stated that the company is buying back stock because the intrinsic value currently exceeds the market price. The stock had lagged the S&P 500 by more than 30 percentage points over the last 10 months following Warren Buffett’s transition announcement.
- The Personal Bet: In a rare move for modern corporate America, Abel personally purchased 21 Class A shares for roughly $14.6 million—representing the entire after-tax value of his $25 million salary. He now holds $182 million in BRK stock.
- The Philosophy: Berkshire does not issue equity grants or stock options. As Abel noted: “Our shareholders are owners, use their after-tax dollars to buy Berkshire, I’ll do the same. No one else in corporate America does this.”
🔥 THE PACIFICORP FIREWALL: While the buybacks sent a positive signal, Abel also used his first televised CEO interview to address the $50 billion elephant in the room: Oregon wildfire litigation against Berkshire’s PacifiCorp utility. With S&P Global threatening a junk-status downgrade, Abel drew a firm line in the sand. He stated that while the utility takes absolute responsibility for its own faults, it will aggressively push back against covering damages caused by acts of nature like lightning, declaring that PacifiCorp is not an unlimited insurer of last resort.
💡 ANALYST TAKEAWAY: Greg Abel’s first major public moves are a masterclass in signaling continuity and confidence. By deploying his own after-tax salary to buy the dip alongside the corporate treasury, he is entirely neutralizing the narrative that Berkshire has become too cautious with its capital. Furthermore, his firm stance on the PacifiCorp litigation shows he is willing to publicly defend the balance sheet against spiraling legal liabilities. If Abel truly plans to sit in the CEO chair for the next 20 years as he stated, this week proved he is fully aligned with the shareholders coming along for the ride.
👇 Value Investors & Portfolio Managers: Does Abel’s $14.6 million personal purchase give you the confidence that Berkshire is currently undervalued, or are the $50 billion PacifiCorp legal tail-risks still too large to ignore?