✍️ Buffet’s Berkshire: Passing the Torch = The Legacy Continues + Donating it ALL!
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Dear all,
Berkshire’s 2nd quarter 2026 earnings report is expected on the 3rd of August.
Once I am done with the financials, charts and key insights, I will send you the 2nd edition of “The Berkshire Hathaway Report” which is planned to be delivered each quarter, and ad-hoc when very important and timely!
✍️ Buffet’s Berkshire: The Legacy Continues! Stash Away Baby! Fundamentals, Buybacks, Optionality, Valuation, and … Patience! ✍️
As a quick preview, I expect 1-3 surprises in the 2nd quarter. One of them is regarding Berkshire accelerating the stock buybacks!
after digging into the various Berkshire fillings, together with Buffett’s own annual charitable giving July disclosures, based on various sleek calculations, there is a high probability (not a guarantee) of way more stock buybacks in Q2
should that be the case, I expect the media and pundits to catch the story, and the stock to react because it would mean the stock is trading below Intrinsic Value
if most of the buyback happened in early July which would be unlikely (and not during Q2 April-June), then we will have to wait until Q3 to confirm this or not
A quick recap on Berkshire stock buybacks and a visual:
👉 after doing big buybacks since the 2020 covid times, a long pause of 21 months / 7 consecutive quarters between Q2 2024 and Q1 2026 (aka quite a ‘dry spell’)
👉 resumed buybacks in Q1 2026 with bigger stock buybacks expected for Q2 2026
👉 numbers time, baby: if in Q1 2026 buybacks were worth around $226 million, for Q2 2026 I expect that number in the billions, anywhere between $4-12 billion, with my best estimate around $8 billion, for a drop in the share count anywhere between -0.5% and -0.8% for an equivalent of 10–20 million shares! Let that one sink in!
Until Q2 2026 results are out together with my related deep dive report, today’s key qualitative report will cover Buffett handing over the Berkshire baton to CEO Greg Abel, and Buffet’s impressive decision of donating his entire fortune!
📊 Buffett passing the torch to Abel after a mighty 6 decade tenure
📊 Buffett’s philanthropy: donating his entire fortune
👍 Bonus: Qualitative Character Analysis (QCA), general remarks
Let’s get started!
📊 Buffett passing the torch to Abel after a mighty 6 decade tenure 📊
After a mighty six-decade tenure, Warren Buffett announced the CEO handover to Greg Abel back in May 2025, which started to be effective as of January 1st 2026.
Rest assured, Buffett has no full retirement plans, and continues to work daily in his new role as Non-Executive Chairman with further advice and investment decisions.
On the 28th of February Berkshire reported its Q4 2025 & full-year 2025 results, and it was also the first time new CEO Greg Abel wrote his 1st Berkshire Hathaway Letter.
How did that one start? With a class act from Greg Abel. The very first two words:
“Warren Buffett” … continued by “is arguably the greatest investor of all time, with generations benefiting from his investment acumen.”
Honoring the past, Abel also surprised Buffett (who was in the audience), by “retiring” his CEO jersey with Buffett’s name and the number 60. The jersey was lifted to the rafters alongside Charlie Munger’s with the number 45, representing the number of years the two partners served as Berkshire’s leaders. As another class act, it served as a symbol: the Buffett and Munger era will always be honored and never forgotten!
What did Warren say about Greg passing on the torch to him?
👉 May 2025 CNBC interview with Becky Quick:
“I would rather have Greg handling my money than any of the top investment advisors or any of the top CEOs in the United States.”
👉 November 2025, annual Thanksgiving letter to shareholders and family:
“I can’t think of a CEO, a management consultant, an academic, a member of government – you name it – that I would select over Greg to handle your savings and mine.” … “He is a great manager, a tireless worker and an honest communicator.
Wish him an extended tenure.”
👉 January 2026, CNBC’s ‘Warren Buffett: A Life and Legacy’:
“Greg will be the decider! I can not imagine how much more he can get accomplished in a week than I can in a month. And at the same time, he is not a distorted individual, I mean he likes to play ice hockey with his kids, and he lives what would look like a normal life.
And my guess is if the neighbors didn’t know who he was, they wouldn’t have any idea that on January 1st, he is going to be the decider on a company that employs close to 400 thousand people and has got plans to be around 60 or 100 years from now.
And who knows what’ll happen? But it has a better chance, I think, of being here a hundred years from now than any company I can think of.”
👉 May 2026, Berkshire shareholders’ meeting:
“Greg is doing everything I did and then some. And he’s doing it better in all cases.” He added the board’s decision to make Abel his replacement was “100% successful.”
Let that one sink in! If you ask me, if that is not a massive endorsement, nothing is!
What about Charlie Munger on Greg?
👉 May, 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting: “Greg will keep the culture” in response to a question about Berkshire’s decentralised structure and whether the company had the right culture to support it. This is key in a major leadership transition, and in Berkshire’s case is not just corporate boilerplate mambo-jambo virtue signalling!
Greg did not forget at all Charlie’s comments and in the 2025 letter he emphasised:
“It was a reminder that our culture is our most treasured asset”.
“Our culture begins with a partnership attitude.
Our shareholders are our partners whose trust we have earned and must work to keep. Their interests are at the center of our decision-making”.
Even before the shareholder letter, Greg sent a distinct letter to all employees which basically makes the point:
“Berkshire’s culture and values remain unchanged and will continue into perpetuity”.
📊 Buffett’s philanthropy: donating his entire fortune 📊
Buffett’s charity can me summarised in short as: from Compounding Wealth to Distributing Wealth, for an overall philosophy of Giving While Compounding!
Buffett formal large-scale philanthropic journey began 20 years ago in 2006.
👉 How Much?
formally committed to donating more than 99% of his wealth to philanthropy:
“Were we to use more than 1% of my claim checks on ourselves,” referring to Berkshire stock, “neither our happiness nor our well-being would be enhanced. In contrast, that remaining 99% can have a huge effect on the health & welfare of others.”
in dollar terms, it now totals above $65 billion, substantially more than his entire net worth back in 2006 when he made the pledge — making him the largest philanthropist in history by dollar amount!
👉 To Whom?
they have gone to 5 main foundations, all in the form of Berkshire stock:
👉 The Giving Pledge — initiative inspiring the other wealthy to donate to charity
co-founded in 2010 with Bill and Melinda Gates, encouraging the world’s richest people to pledge at least half of their fortunes to charity
started with 40 signatories in the United States in 2010. As of November 2025, it has grown to more than 250 pledgers from 30 countries
for this Buffett received in 2011 from Obama the Presidential Medal of Freedom
👉 What if Buffett wouldn’t have done all the charity for $65 billion?
that stock would now be worth more than $250 billion, hence he’d have a net wealth of almost $400 billion (140 + 250) — let that one sink in!
All in all, for nearly two decades, the vast majority went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and his family‑linked charities. As Buffett decided recently to exclude the Gates Foundation from any further donations, the focus is now shifting toward a family‑run, multi‑foundation model that will continue for decades after his lifetime.
In a very recent release from July 14th, Buffett says:
“My goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years.”
The goal is to have the grants grow annually to each of the three foundations managed by each of my children and the annual grant to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation grow at a somewhat greater rate.“
Even without taking into account potential increases in Berkshire’s stock price, that implies gifts of at least $17 billion / year, more than double the $7 billion from 2025. This will be overseen by his three children, who must decide unanimously.
If you want to see the ins and outs of such a major task, Buffett’s three children sat down in January 2026 with Becky Quick on the big task their father has given to them: to one day give away his $140 billion dollar fortune. Susan, Howard and Peter talk about their own foundations, working together and growing up with Warren.
On top of the top, Buffett’s enormous wealth accumulation hasn’t changed him, something that most enormously wealthy people can’t simply claim — well, actually that is valid also (or even more) for WAY less wealthy people, especially the nowadays ‘Instagram’ folks needy for constant superficial attention, admiration and adulation!
The saying that “money just makes you more of what you already are” is generally true. And that is something I also witnessed anecdotally as a mini ‘observational study’ across time with people from the very low wealth to the ultra wealth.
Basically, money magnifies existing qualities: kindness becomes greater generosity, while meanness enables more selfishness.
Buffett with the same house in Omaha (no MTV Cribs with big estates), no fancy cars, same community aiming continuously to add value and form great friendships.
The more time passed, the more Buffett donated — at its core, Buffett remained the same bright, optimistic, curious, lifelong learner and upbeat young adult.
🫡🫡🫡 Hats off! Respect! What a character and human being! 🫡🫡🫡
👍 Bonus: Qualitative Character Analysis (QCA), general remarks 👍
In general on qualitative analysis, too often and too many investors overlook this major aspect as they are too focused in a myriad of quantitative metrics:
I used to do that mistake also, but with time and experience I have the qualitative aspects at least 50% if not more important than ‘the numbers’ — ‘Why, how Mav?’
many times, knowing the integrity and character of the managers, insiders and employees (‘the culture’), the incentives (aligned with the shareholders) and the fundamental business model, gets a lot of the research job done: from there the numbers just flow from the former!
trust is a huge part building conviction to invest in a given business (especially in bad times), and in the same time it also builds a margin of safety!
Buffet said they looks for 3 main qualities when hiring somebody:
“We look for intelligence. We look for initiative or energy, and we look for integrity.
And if they do not have the latter, the first two will kill you! Because if you are going to get somebody without integrity, you want them lazy and dumb (laughter 😀)!
I mean, yeah, you don’t want them smart and energetic!”
I bet that applies to both hiring and when investing in a new company: they will scrutinize the character, integrity and values of the executives like nothing else! Knowing your counterpart is essential, not knowing is playing dangerous games.
After all, intelligence is not hard to find in a room of ambitious and highly educated people, but character is a personal choice. Across time, I met many people with high motivation and high education as a common denominator (Type-A characters), yet personal choices break sometimes that common denominator.
Each decide to be honest, emphatic, generous, and fair … or the opposite! Most people make the right choices, yet you have to avoid the bad apples!
“You decide to be dishonest, stingy, uncharitable, egotistical, all the things people don’t like in other people,” argues Warren. “They are all choices.
Some people think there’s a limited little pot of admiration to go around, and anything the other guy takes out of the pot, there’s less left for you.
But it’s just the opposite.”
On reputation, recall Buffett’s powerful quote to Salomon Brothers employees during their treasury bond scandal in the late 1980s:
“Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding.
Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”
He elaborated on this in a memo to Berkshire’s subsidiary managers (”The All-Stars”):
“We can afford to lose money, even a lot of money. But we can’t afford to lose reputation, even a shred of reputation.
We must continue to measure every act against not only what is legal, but also what we would be happy to have written about on the front page of a national newspaper in an article written by an unfriendly but intelligent reporter.”
More recently, in his 2024 shareholder letter, Buffett also addressed the flip side, namely how to handle mistakes once they occur. He wrote:
“A decent batting average in personnel decisions is all that can be hoped for.
The cardinal sin is delaying the correction of mistakes or what Charlie Munger called ‘thumb-sucking,’” and he noted also that “Problems cannot be wished away.
They require action, however uncomfortable that may be.”
The takeaway and overall message is consistent: reputation is non-negotiable, while when mistakes happen, the cardinal sin isn’t making them, but hesitating to fix them!
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With respect,
Mav 👋 🤝
