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Warren Buffett served as the chief executive officer of the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +1.05%)(BRKB +0.84%) holding company from 1965 to 2025. Under his leadership, it became a $1 trillion conglomerate with several wholly owned subsidiaries, a $350 billion stock portfolio, and over $300 billion in cash.

Buffett selected one of his longtime deputies, Greg Abel, to step into the CEO role at the start of 2026. It won't be easy for Abel to replicate his predecessor's success, but he has purchased $14.4 billion worth of Buffett's favorite stock so far this year, which is always a popular move with shareholders.

Warren Buffett. Image source: Getty Images.

Berkshire stock obliterated the S&P 500 during Buffett's tenure

Berkshire was a textiles manufacturer when Buffett acquired a controlling stake in 1965. Its business was struggling, and after deciding it was no longer viable, he turned it into a holding company for his various investments.

Berkshire now wholly owns a number of insurance providers, consumer brands, logistics giants, and utilities, which it manages privately. They produce significant cash flow that the conglomerate often uses to purchase minority stakes in other companies, compounding shareholders' returns.

Buffett liked to invest in companies with steady growth, consistent profits, and experienced management teams, but he especially liked those with shareholder-friendly initiatives like stock buyback programs and dividend schemes, because they supercharged Berkshire's returns.

For example, Buffett acquired 400 million shares of Coca-Cola between 1988 and 1994 for around $1.3 billion. He never sold a single share; the position is now worth a whopping $38.2 billion, and it will pay Berkshire $848 million in dividends this year alone. Buffett's long-term investment in American Express produced similar results.

Buffett also famously invested $38 billion in Apple between 2016 and 2023. The stake was worth over $170 billion at the start of 2024, which represented half the value of Berkshire's entire portfolio. Buffett and his team had sold 75% of the position by the end of 2025 to cash in some gains and reduce concentration risk, but it remains one of the conglomerate's most successful investments ever.

Berkshire stock delivered a compound annual return of 19.7% during Buffett's 60-year tenure, crushing the S&P 500 index, which returned an average of 10.5% per year over the same period. Had an investor parked $500 in Berkshire stock in 1965, they would have been sitting on $24.2 million by the time Buffett stepped down at the end of 2025, whereas the same investment in the S&P would have grown to just $199,851.

Buffett bought $77.8 billion worth of Berkshire stock between 2018 and 2024

Buffett struggled to identify worthy investment opportunities in the years leading up to his retirement. Berkshire had become so large that very few stocks in the U.S. (that he didn't already own) could produce enough growth to move the needle, which is why he diversified into countries like Japan toward the end of his tenure.

As a result, Buffett decided to return some of Berkshire's growing cash pile to shareholders. Between 2018 and 2024, he authorized $77.8 billion worth of stock buybacks, meaning Berkshire purchased its own shares on the open market. This reduced the number of shares in circulation, and thus made each remaining share more valuable.

Buybacks give investors control over when they crystallize their gains for tax purposes, so Buffett preferred them to dividend payments, which are taxed almost immediately.

By spending more money on buybacks than he invested in any other company throughout his career, Buffett clearly believed Berkshire was capable of delivering better returns than practically any other company of similar size, and its long-term track record against the S&P 500 is proof.

Buybacks have returned under Greg Abel

Buffett didn't authorize any stock buybacks during his final year as CEO, likely because he wanted to leave his successor, Greg Abel, with as much cash as possible to take Berkshire into its new era.

Abel is already making big moves, having invested over $20 billion in Google parent Alphabet so far. But he also restarted Berkshire's buyback machine, authorizing $235 million worth of repurchases in the first quarter of 2026, followed by a further $4.5 billion in the second quarter, and then a whopping $9.6 billion in the third quarter.

That's $14.4 billion returned to shareholders in Abel's first nine months at the helm.

Berkshire can repurchase its own shares at management's discretion as long as the value of its cash and cash equivalents remains above $30 billion. The company currently has over $352 billion in dry powder, so there is plenty of room for Abel to get more aggressive in the coming quarters.