Howard Buffett will succeed Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway

Warren Buffett announced on Sunday, December 12, that he will be succeeded by his son Howard Graham Buffett to overlook Berkshire Hathaway values in the capacity of a non-executive chairman, an unpaid position.

The announcement not only came as a surprise to Americans but also to Howard or Howie, as he is known in the family. However, to him the opportunity will not come in a quick succession to the announcement.

“He won’t leave until he’s buried in the ground,” Howard told in the interview.

The stock market remained unresponsive to the announcement on Monday, maybe due to the non-executive nature of the position. Warren clearly stated that Howard will be supervising the values and culture of the company and will provide with a Buffett-presence.

Howard, who is a successful corn and soybean farmer, has a sister and a brother. However, none of them have ever been forced to get into their father’s business. To best of their knowledge—while they were growing up—their father was a security analyst. Howie’s
sister, Susan Buffett once called him a security guard in her school days, clearly not knowing the difference.

Next of kin to Warren, Howie started farming at an early age. He turned the backyard of their house into a corn field at the age of 5. Warren appreciated it and bought some land and rented it to him on yearly basis.

Now 56, Howard owns almost 15,000 acres of agricultural land in Illinois, Nebraska and South Africa. His yearly earnings are no doubt well ahead of the rent he owed his father as a child.

Howard is also a philanthropist and due his ideology against the excessive use of technology, he runs his own non-profit, named Howard G. Buffett Foundation. The primary objective of the organization is to help the farmers under the poverty line, who provide
for the world but remain starved themselves, to increase their yields. He also urges them to learn accounting in various programs he has laid out at HGBF.

In addition, Howard is also an author of almost half a dozen books related to agriculture and philanthropy. He has also served in the boards of directors at Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., Archer Daniels Midland and ConAgra Foods.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Dec 12 2011. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry