Can Berkshire Hathaway without Warren Buffett remain a ‘north star’ for China’s investors?

As the company’s new leader makes a mark by ending a 14-quarter net-selling streak, analysts discuss the staying power of value investing

For decades, thousands of Chinese investors made pilgrimages each spring to Omaha, in the central US state of Nebraska, treating Warren Buffett’s shareholder meetings for investment firm Berkshire Hathaway less as corporate briefings than as audiences with an oracle.

Buffett’s retirement as CEO, effective January 1, ended a 60-year run at the helm of the global conglomerate. Though he remains chairman, he was succeeded as chief executive by Greg Abel, who joined Berkshire in 1999 and had run its non-insurance businesses since 2018.

With Buffett stepping back, the question hanging over the investment firm is whether it can continue to inspire devotion like Buffett did with his value-investing approach. Market analysts said that while the legendary investor’s own status could be hard to replace, Berkshire’s case remained firmly intact – but not without tweaks to its tactics.

“Buffett’s investment philosophy is universal,” said Yang Delong, chief economist at Qianhai Open Source Fund Management, who has attended shareholder meetings in Omaha for a decade. “Whether he is retired or not, his principles remain worthy of everyone’s attention.”

Yang added that Abel’s approach so far had remained consistent with Buffett’s long-standing strategy, and that “Chinese investors’ attention towards the company will not diminish”.

Buffett’s philosophy – simply put, buying assets for less than their true worth, based on fundamentals rather than short-term trends – had served as a “north star for Chinese investors” ever since his principles were introduced to the country in the 1990s, according to Kevin Chen Kaifeng, chief economist at Horizon Financial in New York, who was also among this year’s attendees.