Playing out the last hand
On February 28th Warren Buffett released his 50th annual letter to shareholders. In April of last year, we considered how his succession might play out.
WHAT do the next 50 years have in store for Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate Warren Buffett has run with spectacular success for the past half century? It is an interesting question, Mr Buffett acknowledged in a recent note to The Economist declining to be interviewed about it; “so interesting that I recently assigned the same story to myself” and “I don’t want to step on my own lines.” But, he offers, “in 50 years, we can have lunch and compare the actual to the projected.”
Mr Buffett has joked that “I love running Berkshire, and if enjoying life promotes longevity, Methuselah’s record is in jeopardy.” In that spirit this newspaper looks forward to taking him up on the offer of lunch on or around his 134th birthday. But having built Berkshire Hathaway on his mastery of the insurance business, he will know that the actuarial tables seldom lie, and that the biggest challenge his beloved company will face...