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Veteran investment manager Todd Combs is to leave Berkshire Hathaway and join JPMorgan Chase, as Warren Buffett prepares to step back from running the $1.1tn conglomerate.
Combs is currently investment manager of Berkshire and chief executive of Geico, the US car insurance company that is one of the most important companies inside the group, and was seen as Buffett’s investment protégé.
The move comes as Berkshire announced a series of wider leadership changes, weeks after Buffett said he would be “going quiet” as he readied to retire from his role as chief executive.
Combs is joining to run JPMorgan’s $10bn Strategic Investment Group, part of the bank’s Security and Resiliency Initiative, which will see it take stakes in companies to help fund growth in areas it deems critical to national security. He will report to JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon.
In a statement on Monday, 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 had run a small hedge fund, was recruited by Berkshire in 2010 after writing to Buffett’s business partner Charlie Munger, asking to meet him.
As Buffett stepped back from managing Berkshire’s vast securities portfolio, Combs gradually took on a greater role in investment decisions, alongside Ted Weschler. He was appointed Geico chief executive in 2019.
This is a developing story
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