Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway are contemplating the future of the conglomerate following Warren Buffett‘s unexpected announcement of stepping down as chief executive by year end. While most acknowledging that the company will remain stable under Vice Chairman Greg Abel’s leadership who Buffett endorsed to be his successor, some stakeholders express concern about the absence of Buffett’s unique insight and charisma.
The $1.16 trillion organisation, encompassing 189 operating businesses, $264 billion in stocks and $348 billion in cash, faces uncertainty regarding its trajectory post-Buffett era. The announcement came after the annual meeting’s question-answer session, with the board scheduled to discuss the transition.
“There has been a premium on Berkshire because of Buffett,” said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Siebert.NXT, as quoted by news agency Reuters. “Will people look at it in the same way?”
Richard Casterline, a computer programmer from Denver, found the news startling and expressed interest in the market’s reaction. He said, “I don’t think (Abel) elicits the same excitement. It’s not any fault of his own, it’s just thinking of who could be as legendary as those two are. It’s just tough shoes to fill.”
Despite concerns, Abel receives substantial support. Daniel Hanson senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman expressed complete confidence in Abel’s capabilities, “This is Buffett’s baby, and he thoughtfully and deliberately planned for an orderly succession that does not disrupt the value of his life’s work,” he said, adding, “I have full confidence in Greg’s leadership.”
Richard Lancaster compared the transition to Apple’s leadership change from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook and adding, “You have two different personalities, two different approaches.”
“Greg has all the qualities Warren likes in a manager: very sharp individual, and well-versed in what’s in the business climate today and the changes that will come through disruptive technologies,” he also said.
Under Buffett’s stewardship, Berkshire’s shareholder returns have consistently outperformed the S&P 500 (.SPX). The company’s investment decisions often influenced market movements, even when Buffett wasn’t directly involved.
Abel’s approach suggests possible adjustments. He indicated increased involvement in subsidiary oversight whilst maintaining their autonomy. Berkshire’s diverse portfolio includes Geico insurance, BNSF railway, utilities, Dairy Queen, Fruit of the Loom and See’s Candies, as reported by Reuters.
The new leadership might adopt different approaches to business retention and divestment. Previously, Berkshire sold Applied Underwriters in 2019 and its newspaper holdings in 2020 due to market changes.

Europe’s ageing power grid and lack of energy storage capacity will require trillions of dollars in investments to cope with rising green energy output, increasing electricity demand and to avoid blackouts.

A week ago, Spain and Portugal lost power in their worst blackout. Authorities are investigating the cause, but whatever the findings, analysts and industry representatives say infrastructure investment is essential.

“The blackout was a wake-up call. It showed that the need to modernise and reinforce Europe’s electricity grid is urgent and unavoidable,” Kristina Ruby, secretary general at Eurelectric, Europe’s electricity industry association, said.

The European Union’s power grid mostly dates back to the last century and half the lines are over 40 years old. Rising low-carbon energy production and booming demand from data centres and electric vehicles require an overhaul of the grids that also need digital protection to withstand cyber attacks.

While global investment in renewables has nearly doubled since 2010, investment in grids has barely changed at around $300 billion a year. The amount needs to double by 2030 to over $600 billion a year to cover the necessary overhauls, according to the International Energy Agency.

Spain has asked its own investigators and European Union regulators to investigate last Monday’s outage.

While the underlying issues have yet to become clear, grid operator Red Electrica said two separate incidents had triggered the massive power loss.

It follows an acceleration in renewable energy use, especially in Spain, after Russia’s invasion invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the resulting disruption of oil and gas supplies focused EU efforts on reducing dependence on fossil fuel.

The share of renewables rose to 47% in the EU’s power mix last year from 34% in 2019, while fossil fuels dropped to 29% from 39%, data from think tank Ember showed.

Spain plans to phase out coal and nuclear power. Renewable generation hit a record high at 56% of Spain’s power mix in 2024.

Wind and solar projects are relatively quick to build compared with grids, which can take more than a decade.

Part of the problem is the huge sums and complexity of improving a grid over a large distance.

The European Commission has estimated Europe needs to invest $2.0-2.3 trillion in grids by 2050.

Last year, European firms invested 80 billion euros ($90.5 billion) in grids, up from 50-70 billion in previous years, analysts at Bruegel said while adding investments may need to rise to 100 billion.

Inter-state Connections

Spain and Portugal’s power systems are among those in Europe that lack connections to other grids that can provide back up.

Spain needs more links to France and Morocco, said José Luis Domínguez-García from Spain’s energy research centre IREC in Catalunya.

Spain has only 5% of connections outside the Iberian Peninsula, he added.

As some other countries also lag, the European Commission has a target to increase interconnection to 15% by 2030, from a previous goal of 10%, meaning each EU member country should be able to import at least 15% of its power production capacity from neighbouring countries.

Spain will reinforce connections with France, including a new link via the Bay of Biscay that will double the interconnection capacity between the two countries, Spain’s grid Red Electrica said on Tuesday.

Need for backup

As solar and wind generation grows, the challenges go beyond upgrading grids to the need for back-up generation.

Solar and wind farms generate direct current power, while traditional gas or nuclear plants generate alternating current.

DC power is converted to AC in inverters to standard 50 Hertz frequency for European grids and use in homes and businesses. If power generation drops, the grid requires back-up AC power to prevent the frequency from dropping.

In the event frequency drops, automatic safety mechanisms disconnect some generation to prevent overheating, damage to transformers or transmission lines. If too many plants drop off at the same time, the system can experience a blackout.

Before last week’s outage, Spain had suffered power glitches and industry officials had repeatedly warned of grid instability.

Spain’s energy officials have also said the country’s plans to shut down all seven of its nuclear reactors by 2035 could put power supply at risk.

Portugal has only two back-up plants – a gas and a hydro plant – able to quickly respond if the grid needs more power, Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said on Tuesday, adding the country wants more.

In Britain, a blackout in 2019 cut power to a million customers, when a lightning strike and a second, unrelated incident lowered the frequency of the grid.

Since then, the country has invested to expand battery storage and had around 5 gigawatts of capacity installed at the end of last year, according to industry association RenewableUK. It can help balance the grid in the same way as power plants.

Europe has 10.8 gigawatts of battery storage and it will grow to 50 GW by 2030 – much less than the required 200 GW, according to the European Association for Storage of Energy.

In Ireland, Siemens Energy has built the world’s largest flywheel, which can also operate as power storage and help to stabilise the grid.

A reliance on imports in the absence of significant manufacturing footprint coupled with a growing population make Kuwait a promising destination for Indian pharmaceutical firms to export or set up production facilities, a study report commissioned by the Indian Embassy in the West Asian country showed.

Kuwait’s pharma imports from India are the lowest among Gulf Cooperation Council member-countries, both in terms of value and share of total imports. It is a pointer to the untapped potential for lower cost options from India, which globally is a major generic drugs supplier, the Marmore MENA Intelligence report for the Embassy found.

In 2023, of Kuwait’s total pharma imports of $1,881 million, India accounted for 0.7%. A little over 2% of total GCC pharmaceutical imports were from India. Indian pharmaceutical forms 4.6% of Oman’s total pharmaceutical imports, the highest amongst the GCC countries, while UAE imports of $173.3 million from India, represents the highest value of imports among the six countries.

The Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India, with whom the Embassy shared the report, in a communication to its members said the government of Kuwait is actively working on a pharmaceutical manufacturing strategy to develop a competitive, export-oriented industry. High-quality drug formulations, excluding active pharmaceutical ingredients manufacturing for the present; JVs with global companies for localising biosimilar production for regional and global markets; localisation of packaging materials for medicines and medical supplies; expansion of supply contracts to support local manufacturers; as well as incentive and support programmes for local producers are likely to be some of the features of the strategy, Pharmexcil said.

Kuwait’s population has grown 12.3% from 4.47 million in 2019 to an estimated 5.01 million in 2024.

At present, there is one local manufacturing company – the Kuwait Saudi Pharmaceutical Industries Company. The generic painkillers and antibiotics manufactured by it are used for domestic consumption as well as for exports to the GCC and MENA region.

Key import sources for Kuwait are the U.S. and European countries of Germany, , Switzerland, France, Ireland and Italy.

A government study in Kuwait in March outlined various government objectives to support development of medical industries sector, which present an opportunity for international players to work in tandem with the government to fast-track the localisation of pharma manufacturing, the Marmore report said.

Marmore said the advantages for companies tapping Kuwait include stress on expansion of generic medicines availability in the country to improve affordability while also pointing to the benefits of early entry, by pharma firms, to take advantage of pricing rules. While early entry provides higher margins, later entry enables suppliers to advantage from a larger volume of sales. This is because late entrants are forced to be priced lower than their counterparts, making them more affordable for the public, it said.