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Warren Buffett signals successor has been chosen

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Published : Aug. 17, 2011 - 10:53

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WASHINGTON (AFP) -- American billionaire Warren Buffett has indicated that a successor to head his Berkshire Hathaway firm has already been "agreed on" and could step in as soon as the investment guru retires or dies.

Warren Buffett (AP-Yonhap News) Warren Buffett (AP-Yonhap News)

"There's several people, but there's one person they've all agreed on," Buffett, speaking of his holding company's board of directors, said Monday on the PBS network show "Charlie Rose," according to a transcript.

Without naming names, the Berkshire founder and chairman known as the Oracle of Omaha said that "if I die tonight, tomorrow morning it won't take the board an hour to have announced my successor."

Last October Buffett hinted that Berkshire Hathaway's newly appointed investment manager Todd Combs could one day head investments for his massive company.

The 40-year-old Combs had been little known in the US business world, having spent the last five years running Castle Point Capital Management.

Questions about the octogenarian's successor also swirled in March, when Berkshire top executive David Sokol, who had also been tipped by some to replace Buffett at the helm of the $372 billion investment house, resigned after a share-buying scandal.

In the interview, Buffett also said he was "100 percent" opposed to the decision by ratings agency Standard & Poor's earlier this month to ding the United States' sterling AAA credit rating for the first time, a move which sent markets into a panic, although they stabilized in the days after the downgrade.

Buffett also warned on PBS of the "very, very stark statement" by the US Federal Reserve last week when it pledged to hold interest rates near zero for two more years to counter an economy facing increased risks of stalling.

"They're really saying the economy is not going to be very good until then," Buffett said. "There's a chance they're wrong."

Buffett earlier had pricked the ears of investors, politicians and analysts by writing an opinion piece in Monday's New York Times urging lawmakers to raise taxes on wealthier Americans, including the mega-rich like him, in order to cut the country's huge budget deficit, saying the move would not dampen investments or jobs.

 

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억만장자 버핏의 후계자는 누구?


워런 버핏 미국 버크셔 해서웨이 회장이 자 신의 후계자가 이미 결정됐음을 시사했다.

버핏은 15일(현지시간) PBS방송의 `찰리 로즈'쇼에 출연한 자리에서 후계자 문제와 관련, "여러 명이 있지만, 그들 모두가 동의하는 것은 한 사람"이라고 말했다.

그는 이 자리에서 후계자를 거명하지는 않았다. 다만 "내가 오늘 밤 죽는다면, 내일 아침에 이사회가 나의 후계자를 발표하는데 1시간이 채 걸리지 않을 것"이라고 말했다.

앞서 버핏은 버크셔 해서웨이의 새로운 투자책임자로 임명된 토드 콤스가 언젠 가 전체 회사를 이끌 수 있음을 지난해 시사한 바 있다.

올해 40세인 콤스는 미 업계에 널리 알려지지는 않은 인물. 버크셔 해서웨이 투자책임자로 임명되기 전 5년간 캐슬포인트캐피털 매니지먼트를 운영했던 것으로 알려져 있다.

버핏의 후계 경쟁에서 선두를 달리던 데이비드 소콜은 내부자 거래문제로 지난 3월 회사를 떠났다. (연합뉴스)