Berkshire Hathaway could increase its cash returns to shareholders once Warren Buffett’s term as chief executive officer comes to an end, according to Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman. “I think they’re going to start to returning capital,” Ackman said Monday on CNBC’s ” Squawk Box. ” The methods for returning capital could include a potential dividend and “being a little bit more aggressive in buying back stock,” Ackman said. Under Buffett , Berkshire never paid a dividend and has not repurchased its own stock since the second quarter of 2024. The Berkshire board voted unanimously on Sunday to make Greg Abel the new president and CEO at year-end , following Buffett’s recommendation. Abel will take over a company with a market value above $1 trillion and a cash pile of more than $347 billion. Even with that enormous amount of capital, Ackman said he expects Abel and the rest of Berkshire management to be “a little bit more careful” on the first major deals post-Buffett. Ackman is a longtime admirer of Buffett and on Monday called him “one of my most important heroes, certainly in business and I would say in life.” The comments came the same day that Pershing Square announced it struck a deal to raise its investment in real estate company Howard Hughes , with plans to turn it into a Berkshire-style conglomerate and investment vehicle. The billionaire hedge fund manager said he has confidence in Abel to be a good steward of Berkshire, though the new CEO has big shoes to fill when it comes to picking stocks and companies to buy. “Greg Abel is known to be a superb operator, and a very good allocator of capital certainly in the business that he’s managed. I think it’s yet to be proven that the current management team has the capability that Buffett has had to buy businesses, and it’s more challenging now because of the scale,” Ackman said. All that said, however, “I wouldn’t bet against Berkshire,” Ackman added.
