Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Farewell: ‘I’m Going Quiet’

In one of his final missives as the company’s leader, Mr. Buffett said he would accelerate his plans to disburse his fortune to his children’s foundations.

In one of his last letters to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholders as the firm’s chief executive, Warren E. Buffett said Monday that he would speed up his plans to give away much of his $150 billion personal fortune to his children’s philanthropic foundations.

“My children are now at their prime in respect to experience and wisdom but have yet to enter old age,” Mr. Buffett, 95, wrote of his daughter and two sons, who range in age from 67 to 72.

Mr. Buffett announced in May that he would step down at the end of this year and turn Berkshire Hathaway’s leadership over to Gregory Abel, 63, who joined Berkshire when it bought the energy business he led in 2000. Mr. Abel “understands many of our businesses and personnel far better than I now do,” Mr. Buffett wrote on Monday.

Mr. Abel will inherit a multinational conglomerate with a vast portfolio and a famously high stock price. Its “class A” shares ended trading on Friday at $748,320.

For 60 years, Mr. Buffett led Berkshire and transformed the company — named for a textile mill that his investment fund took over — into a venture whose holdings encapsulate the American economy. As he built the company into a $1 trillion juggernaut, Mr. Buffett became a household name, famed for his investing prowess and his folksy management approach.

Mr. Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders became part of his legend. The discursive notes mixed economic analysis, investment advice, leadership maxims and personal asides with updates on the health of the company’s railroads, energy businesses, retail shops and blue-chip stocks. (Mr. Abel has said he will continue the tradition and send his own annual dispatch.)

Mr. Buffett said Monday that he would soon be “going quiet” — but not that quiet. He will keep sending an annual Thanksgiving letter, he said.

He used this year’s preholiday missive to indulge in some nostalgia and reassure Berkshire’s investors and followers that he remains in good health.

“Though I move slowly and read with increasing difficulty, I am at the office five days a week where I work with wonderful people,” he wrote. “Occasionally, I get a useful idea or am approached with an offer we might not otherwise have received.”

Mr. Buffet has often woven patriotic tributes to America — and in particular, to Omaha, where he was born and still lives in the house he has owned since 1958 — into his notes, and he returned to those themes on Monday.

“The center of the United States was a very good place to be born, to raise a family and to build a business,” he wrote.

Among Berkshire’s holdings are names that many consumers recognize: GEICO, Dairy Queen, See’s Candies, Fruit of the Loom, Benjamin Moore and NetJets.

The company has been bullish lately on Treasury bills, holding a stash that at times this year has eclipsed that of the Federal Reserve. The company ended September with more than $300 billion in Treasurys in its coffers.

The United States is “capricious and sometimes venal in distributing its rewards,” but investors should “remember to thank America for maximizing your opportunities,” Mr. Buffett advised in his letter.

“Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the chairman,” he wrote, before closing with a mild zinger:

“I wish all who read this a very happy Thanksgiving. Yes, even the jerks; it’s never too late to change.”

Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.

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