{"id":40561,"date":"2025-12-11T11:31:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T11:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/warren-buffett-hired-todd-combs-to-take-over-berkshires-portfolio-one-day-heres-what-close-watchers-say-about-his-surprise-exit\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T11:31:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T11:31:54","slug":"warren-buffett-hired-todd-combs-to-take-over-berkshires-portfolio-one-day-heres-what-close-watchers-say-about-his-surprise-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/warren-buffett-hired-todd-combs-to-take-over-berkshires-portfolio-one-day-heres-what-close-watchers-say-about-his-surprise-exit\/","title":{"rendered":"Warren Buffett hired Todd Combs to take over Berkshire&#8217;s portfolio one day. Here&#8217;s what close watchers say about his surprise exit."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/693966817ecd1d1da6634232?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A side-by-side image of Warren Buffett and departing Geico CEO, Todd Combs.\"\/><figcaption>A side-by-side image of Warren Buffett and departing Geico CEO, Todd Combs.<\/p>\n<p>Nati Harnik\/Associated Press; Drew Angerer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Warren Buffett hired Todd Combs to eventually succeed him as Berkshire Hathaway&#039;s stock picker.<\/li>\n<li>Combs, one of Buffett&#039;s two investment managers and Geico&#039;s CEO, has quit to join JPMorgan.<\/li>\n<li>After years of praising Combs, Buffett&#039;s farewell announcement for him was muted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Warren Buffett hired Todd Combs in 2010 to help, and ultimately succeed, him and Charlie Munger in managing Berkshire Hathaway&#039;s vast investment portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>But their handpicked heir to the stockpickers&#039; throne has quit to join JPMorgan. The announcement comesjust as Buffett is preparing to step down as CEO after six decades in charge.<\/p>\n<p>Lawrence Cunningham, the director of the University of Delaware&#039;s Weinberg Center and the author of several books about Berkshire, told Business Insider that Combs&#039; exit was &quot;certainly striking.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;My impression is that this was not an easy decision for anyone concerned,&quot; Cunningham added.<\/p>\n<p>Business Insider spoke to longtime Berkshire watchers for their read on Combs&#039; unexpected departure. We also dug through more than 10 years of Berkshire annual letters to see how Buffett&#039;s descriptions of Combs have changed over the years.<\/p>\n<p>Combs and Berkshire did not respond to Business Insider&#039;s requests for comment.<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;We hit the jackpot&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>Buffett has heaped praise on Combs and his other investment manager, Ted Weschler, since hiring the two hedge fund managers around 15 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Combs and Weschler had &quot;proved to be smart, models of integrity, helpful to Berkshire in many ways beyond portfolio management, and a perfect cultural fit,&quot; Buffett wrote in his 2012 shareholder letter, two years after hiring Combs. &quot;We hit the jackpot with these two.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Their contributions are just beginning: Both men have Berkshire blood in their veins,&quot; he wrote the following year.<\/p>\n<p>In his 2015 letter, Buffett gave a &quot;personal thank you&quot; to Combs for bringing Precision Castparts to his attention, paving the way for Berkshire to acquire the manufacturing giant for more than $30 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Buffett also entrusted Combs and Weschler with a bigger piece of Berkshire&#039;s portfolio over time. They started off managing about $2 billion of assets each, but were jointly overseeing $34 billion by the end of 2021. Buffett hasn&#039;t provided an update on the size of their portfolios since then.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, Combs took over as CEO of Berkshire-owned Geico and successfully engineered a turnaround. Buffett shouted him out in this year&#039;s letter, saying he had &quot;reshaped Geico in a major way&quot; and &quot;worked tirelessly in getting the job done,&quot; resulting in a &quot;spectacular improvement&quot; last year.<\/p>\n<p>Steven Check, the founder and chief investor of Check Capital Management, told Business Insider that Combs&#039; departure surprised him as he&#039;d been &quot;handpicked&quot; by Buffett and had taken on the &quot;huge responsibility&quot; of revitalizing Geico and delivered.<\/p>\n<h2>A muted farewell<\/h2>\n<p>Buffett struck a more formal tone in the press release on Monday thatbroke the news of Combs&#039; departure and other leadership changes.<\/p>\n<p>He referred to his colleague of 15 years, who he once envisioned becoming Berkshire&#039;s chief investor, as &quot;Todd A. Combs&quot; \u2014 a sharp contrast to his use of &quot;Marc&quot; for Berkshire&#039;s outgoing finance chief, Marc Hamburg.<\/p>\n<p>Buffett said JPMorgan had &quot;made a good decision&quot; in hiring Combs, but he didn&#039;t mention his personal traits, investing prowess, or other contributions to Berkshire. Buffett only praised Combs for his &quot;many great hires at Geico and broadening its horizons.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;The rather cool sendoff in the press release implies Warren wasn&#039;t too happy about the departure,&quot; Check, a longtime Buffett watcher, said.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Greater expectations<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Before taking over at Geico, Combs played a key role in setting up Haven, a healthcare joint venture between Berkshire, JPMorgan, and Amazon that was launched in 2018 but ended three years later.<\/p>\n<p>He represented Berkshire on Haven&#039;s board and has sat on JPMorgan&#039;s board for the past nine years. He resigned from that post on Sunday ahead of taking up his new role at the bank in January.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Bloomstran, the president of Semper Augustus Investments and a Berkshire shareholder for the past 25 years, told Business Insider that Combs&#039; roles at Haven, JPMorgan, and Geico suggested he had a &quot;diminished role&quot; in managing Berkshire&#039;s portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomstran also pointed outthat in May, Buffett said Abel would be responsible for Berkshire&#039;s capital allocation, including its stock investments.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Todd may have aspired to managing more or all of the portfolio, which wasn&#039;t going to happen,&quot; Bloomstran said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that Combs didn&#039;t seem like a &quot;realistic candidate&quot; to succeed Ajit Jain as Berkshire&#039;s insurance chief, given his lack of reinsurance experience.<\/p>\n<p>Abel having &quot;final say&quot; on how Berkshire invests its cash &quot;may have been the impetus for Todd Combs to consider other career options,&quot; John Longo, a finance professor at Rutgers Business School and the author of &quot;Buffett&#039;s Tips,&quot; told Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>He added that he&#039;s not concerned about Combs leaving, as Weschler is &quot;very capable of managing the equity portfolio.&quot;<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you work for Berkshire Hathaway and have a story to share? Get in touch with this reporter by emailing tmohamed@insider.com or messaging theron.36 on Signal<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A side-by-side image of Warren Buffett and departing Geico CEO, Todd Combs. Nati Harnik\/Associated Press; Drew Angerer\/Getty Images Warren Buffett hired Todd Combs to eventually succeed him as Berkshire Hathaway&#039;s stock picker. Combs, one of Buffett&#039;s two investment managers and Geico&#039;s CEO, has quit to join JPMorgan. After years of praising Combs, Buffett&#039;s farewell announcement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}