Buffett Protégé Todd Combs Leaving Berkshire For JPMorgan

Warren Buffett, 95, has still not departed the investment conglomerate he founded decades ago, and already Berkshire Hathaway is rocked by departures: this morning we learned that his investment protégé Todd Combs is leaving Berkshire for a new role at JPMorgan Chase, as a new guard prepares to take over at the sprawling $1.1tn conglomerate.

Berkshire announced Combs’ departure alongside a series of wider leadership changes on Monday, which come as Buffett prepares to hand over the reins to top Berkshire executive Greg Abel in the new year.

Buffett said that Combs “has resigned to accept an interesting and important job at JPMorgan . . . JPMorgan, as usually is the case, has made a good decision.”

Combs, who until now was chief executive of Geico -the US car insurance company that is one of the most important companies inside the group – is one of two investment managers at Berkshire reporting directly to Buffett. 

Combs will run JPMorgan’s new $10bn Strategic Investment Group, which aims to take stakes in companies critical to national security and is seen as catering to President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies; the 54-year-old will report to Jamie Dimon.

JPMorgan’s $10bn fund, part of a wider $1.5tn financing commitment, turned heads on Wall Street when it was announced in October as it is unusual for banks to take equity stakes in industrial companies. Combs will be tasked with finding investments in the defence, aerospace, healthcare and energy sectors. 

JPMorgan also announced an external advisory council for this program which includes tech founders Jeff Bezos and Michael Dell and former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

Combs has been a member of the bank’s board of directors for nine years but is resigning to take his new post.

Dimon described Combs as “one of the greatest investors and leaders I’ve known”.

Buffett hired Combs in 2010 as the company looked to boost its investment bona fides for a time when the now 95-year-old investor was no longer running Berkshire. 

Initially, Combs was a contender to be the future chief investment officer, overseeing Berkshire’s entire $283 BN stock portfolio, and eventually amassed control over tens of billions of dollars of stocks alongside Ted Weschler, Buffett’s other investment deputy.

He was appointed Geico chief executive in 2019 and was also seen as a possible successor to Ajit Jain at the top of Berkshire’s wider insurance division.

However, as the FT reports, Abel’s ascent at the company raised questions over the roles Combs and Weschler would have overseeing Berkshire’s stocks. Buffett last year said that he believed his successor should have the final say over investment decisions, including how the company’s cash is deployed to invest in stocks.

Nancy Pierce, Geico’s chief operating officer, will replace Combs at the top of the unit, one of the largest auto insurers in the country.

There were other notable moves announced today: Berkshire’s long-standing chief financial officer, Marc Hamburg, would retire in 2027 after 40 years at the company, and for the first time appointed a general counsel to lead its legal efforts. Hamburg will be replaced by the chief financial officer of Berkshire’s energy unit, Charles Chang.

“He has done more for this company than many of our shareholders will ever know,” Buffett said of Hamburg. “His impact has been extraordinary.”

Michael O’Sullivan, who earlier in his career was a partner at the law firm founded by late-Berkshire vice chair Charlie Munger, will start as general counsel in January. He has had the role at the messaging app Snap since 2017.