Berkshire Hathaway shareholders walk by a video screen at the company’s annual meeting in Omaha May 4, 2013. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo
March 15, 2019
(Reuters) – Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Friday said its newest vice chairmen, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain, were each awarded about $18 million last year, in the first detailed look at the pay of the men considered the leading candidates to succeed Warren Buffett as the conglomerate’s chief executive.
Abel, 56, and Jain, 67, who became vice chairmen in January 2018, both received $16 million in salary plus $2 million in bonus, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Buffett sets compensation for both.
The payouts show the willingness of Buffett to pay Berkshire’s younger leaders in a manner similar to that at other publicly-traded companies.
Buffett has for more than a quarter of a century taken a $100,000 salary at Berkshire, but his 16.5 percent ownership stake forms the bulk of his net worth, estimated at $84.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
Abel oversees Berkshire’s non-insurance operations such as the BNSF railroad, aircraft parts maker Precision Castparts, retail businesses such as Fruit of the Loom and Brooks running shoes, and Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which he once led.
Jain, meanwhile, has long been Berkshire’s top insurance executive, and oversees its businesses in that sector, including auto insurer Geico and reinsurer General Re.
In a CNBC interview last month, Buffett said both men were “doing a fabulous job.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Rosalba O’Brien)
