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Combs’ Departure from Berkshire Leaves a Gap in Managing Equity Portfolio

Dec 08, 2025 10:39:00 -0500 by Andrew Bary | #Warren Buffett

Shareholders attend the 2022 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Neb. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Key Points

The coming departure of Berkshire manager Todd Combs to JPMorgan Chase leaves questions about who will manage Berkshire Hathaway’s $300 billion equity portfolio when CEO Warren Buffett retires at the end of 2025.

Combs move to JPMorgan is a loss for Berkshire given his dual role as an investment manager and CEO of Geico, Berkshire’s auto insurance unit.

Combs, 54, was close to Buffett and has lived in Omaha, where the CEO lives and where Berkshire is based, for more than a decade. He joined Berkshire as an investment manager in 2010 and took on the Geico role at the start of 2020.

Combs has described his enjoyment at talking about investments with Buffett and learning from him.

In its press release Monday saying that Combs would be leaving Berkshire and would join JPMorgan in January to lead a group making strategic investments, the conglomerate didn’t mention Combs’ role with the portfolio. It didn’t say who will manage it when Berkshire executive Greg Abel takes over as CEO at the start of 2026.

Combs and Berkshire manager Ted Weschler, 64, have run about 10% of the portfolio, with Buffett handling the rest. Berkshire watchers think they are responsible for some of the smaller holdings in the portfolio, including Sirius XM Holdings, DaVita, Kroger, Visa, VeriSign, and Amazon.com.

Combs is believed to focus more on investments in technology than Weschler. Some Berkshire followers think the former was key to the VeriSign holding. Combs also likely was responsible for Berkshire’s holding in Snowflake , which Berkshire sold several years after Berkshire bought the stock in conjunction with its 2020 initial public offering.

It isn’t clear what role, if any, Buffett will play with the portfolio starting in 2026. He will remain chairman after leaving the CEO job.

“Berkshire-Hathaway needs to become more transparent about the roles and responsibilities of Abel and Wechsler in managing the public equity portfolio,” says investment manager Chris Davis of Hudson Value Partners. “We all love the ‘Berkshire way’, but there needs to be some concessions to the fact it is now a trillion-dollar enterprise undergoing its first leadership transition.

“That out of the two equity portfolio managers brought in, Combs was the younger one, lived in Omaha, and worked “down the hall” from Mr. Buffett, makes this a challenge to the conglomerate’s ability to perpetuate the Berkshire culture,” Davis told Barron’s in an email Monday.

Among the unanswered questions are whether Weschler will remain as a Berkshire investment manager under Abel’s leadership of the company, and whether Abel will bring in anyone new to help run the portfolio.

Weschler is believed to split his time between Charlottesville Va., where he has an office and a home, and Omaha. Weschler had no immediate comment.

It is possible that Weschler could play a larger role with the portfolio starting in 2026, or that Abel could oversee it all.

Buffett loves the investment game and probably will continue to follow the markets. He is responsible for Berkshire’s biggest equity investments, including Apple, American Express, Coca-Cola, and Bank of America.

Berkshire bought about $4 billion of Alphabet stock in the third quarter, one of its larger purchases in recent years. That purchase has panned out well given the stock’s rally in recent months. Berkshire didn’t say which manager was responsible for it, but Barron’s has speculated that given the relatively small size of the holding, it could have been made by either Combs and Weschler.

Combs’ main role at Berkshire since 2020 has been CEO of Geico, Berkshire’s auto insurance unit. Geico is No. 3 in the country in premium volume behind State Farm and Progressive.

Buffett has credited Combs with leading a turnaround effort that included an upgrade of antiquated technology systems that had put Geico at a disadvantage relative to Progressive, an industry technology leader. Geico is now solidly profitable, although it has ceded market share to Progressive.

When Weschler joined Berkshire as an investment manager in 2011, Berkshire said he and Combs would have full responsibility for the portfolio on his retirement.

“After Mr. Buffett no longer serves as CEO, Todd and Ted – possibly aided by one additional manager – will have responsibility for the entire equity and debt portfolio of Berkshire, subject to overall direction by the then-CEO and Board of Directors,” Berkshire said.

Buffett, however, has said at Berkshire’s annual meeting in recent years that Abel should run the portfolio, and that his experience as a manager and buyer of businesses gave him the necessary qualifications. It is also possible that Abel will bring in a new manager or managers to run or help run the equity portfolio.

Abel, however, has no formal experience as an investment manager. He also will have a full plate running Berkshire, including direct oversight of important businesses like the BNSF railroad and Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

The portfolio, once central to the Berkshire investment story, has been less important over the past two decades. The company has become a huge conglomerate led by BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a big utility, and a slew of businesses including Lubrizol, International Dairy Queen, NetJets, Marmon, McLane, Benjamin Moore, Brooks, and many others.

The bulk of Berkshire’s market value of over $1 trillion is attributable to the operating businesses.

The equity portfolio is still sizable but down from a peak of over $350 billion in late 2023 due to sales of more than $100 billion of Apple, which remains Berkshire’s largest equity investment at over $60 billion. The portfolio, however, gets a lot of attention on Wall Street and the company’s quarterly investment moves are closely scrutinized for actions by Buffett.

In recent years, Buffett hasn’t disclosed the investment performance of Combs and Weschler. He did tell CNBC in 2019 that the pair, which have tended to operate independently of each other and Buffett, were each slightly behind the S&P 500 index since joining Berkshire.

It is believed that both are behind the index since 2019, with Weschler associated with such underperforming stocks as Sirius XM and DaVita. Weschler personally owns both those stocks in addition to managing them on behalf of Berkshire.

When longtime Berkshire investment manager Lou Simpson retired from Berkshire in 2010, Buffett sold some of the equity holdings associated with Simpson. It will be interesting, therefore, to see what Berkshire does with the “Combs stocks” including VeriSign.

Corrections & Amplifications: Chris Davis is an investment manager at Hudson Value Partners. An earlier version of this article misidentified the company as Hudson Valley Partners.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com