Investment tycoon Warren Buffett doesn’t see a long road ahead for one of Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance leaders. On February 24, during an interview with CNBC, Buffett revealed that he only expects CEO Todd Combs to run auto insurer GEICO temporarily.
“Todd is there and I hope very much that he’s not there very long,” Buffett told CNBC. “Our intention always is to promote from within. We would hope to pick out the right person at GEICO.”
Combs was tapped back in December to take on the chief executive officer role of Berkshire Hathaway’s GEICO unit. He took over from Bill Roberts, who became vice chairman and stated that he plans to leave GEICO by the end of this year.
The current CEO is the insurer’s third head honcho in recent years – a revolving door of leadership that began when Tony Nicely stepped down as GEICO’s CEO in 2018. Nicely had run the company for decades and was replaced by Roberts, who later told Berkshire that he would be retiring soon, according to reports from Bloomberg.
Besides picking stocks and leading GEICO, Combs has also helped with building Berkshire’s health-care venture with JPMorgan Chase and Amazon, while Ted Weschler, Buffett’s other key investing deputy, has given Buffett a hand in negotiating key deals, such as the purchase of German motorcycle-equipment retailer Detlev Louis Motorradvertriebs GmbH.
