Warren Buffett To Retire: As The Wizard Of Omaha Bows Out, Here’s A Look At Experts Reflecting On His Business Acumen

Warren Buffett, a billionaire American investor, has announced his retirement. The veteran investor has decided to step down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway by the end of 2025, designating Greg Abel as the future successor. 

More than nine decades into his life, Buffett, 94, continues to cast a long shadow over the world of investing. For many in India, the Berkshire Hathaway chief is not just a legendary investor but also a guiding light. Two of India’s top value investors, Sanjay Bakshi and Raamdeo Agrawal, have consistently drawn inspiration from Buffett’s investment philosophies.

In an earlier interview with Outlook Money, veteran investor Raamdeo Agrawal had recalled this offbeat remark with admiration: “We are carried away by his net worth, aura and so on, but the whole thing is about (what he conveys about) how to think about investing. He has become a trillionaire in one lifetime. I think he is going to live for another 20-25 years, and he could become a $10 trillion guy.”

Agrawal, who counts Buffett as a lifelong guru, believes that more than just his investment philosophy, it was Buffett’s enduring optimism that leaves a mark on investors who wish to or have learnt from his experiences.

Agrawal first heard about him in 1994 when he read his balance sheet and fell in love at first sight. “That made me replan my entire strategy on stock market, that pulled me to Omaha,” he said.

Ramdeo recalls his first meeting with Buffett at an annual general meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in 1995 or 1996 where the latter used to sign dollar bills and shake hands with fellow investors. “I still have the dollar bill on which I took Buffett’s signature.”

Deeply inspired by his strategies, Agrawal lists his main learnings from Buffett that includes his understanding of the power of compounding, picking up good business and management, looking at valuation and most importantly, for all investors both seasoned and new - How not to be greedy.

He learnt from Buffett’s experiences that one should keep the purchase price so good that even a mediocre sale gives them a good return.

The essence of Buffett’s legacy may not lie in the numbers or even the decisions made under his stewardship. Instead, it may live on through the people who took his ideas seriously.

Sanjay Bakshi, a behavioural economist and long-time Buffett devotee, traces his journey in investing back to reading Buffett’s letters during his student days in London.

“That’s where I caught the value investing bug,” he recalled in an Outlook Money interview. It was the simplicity with which Buffett combined accounting, business economics, and psychology that stood out.

From Buffett’s letters, Bakshi learned that if you’re a partner in a business, you look at it like a businessman, not like a trader. That partnership mindset, so deeply instilled by Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger, is what Bakshi now tries to pass on as a teacher. It’s also why he no longer chases dozens of trades in a year.

“Now I make two to three decisions in a year, and I think even that needs to be reduced,” he said. Bakshi emphasises that one should not mess with the compounding engine unless one absolutely must.

That notion of compounding, of letting time do its work, is perhaps what makes Buffett’s retirement all the more poignant. He may be stepping down from day-to-day responsibilities, but his own words during the announcement made it clear: his faith in the business is unshaken. “I think the prospects of Berkshire will be better under Greg’s management than mine,” he said during the press statement.

For Buffett's followers, the lesson is less about succession and more about staying in power.

The timeless journey of Buffett is a lesson for investors to zoom out, to think in decades, not quarters. His journey as an investor tells us that the best investments are not about timing the market, they’re about time in the market.

Soon, Buffett may no longer be the man at the helm, but the compass he left behind still points forward.