OMAHA — Berkshire Hathaway has hired a second hedge-fund manager to help run the company’s investment portfolio and prepare for what it described as the eventual retirement of 81-year-old billionaire Warren Buffett.
Berkshire said Monday that Ted Weschler will join the Omaha-based company early next year. The 50- year-old has announced to the partners of his hedge fund, Peninsula Capital Advisors, that he will begin winding up the fund so he can join Berkshire.
The announcement helps clarify the investment part of Berkshire’s succession plan, but because the company plans to split Buffett’s job into separate chief-executive, chairman and investment-manager jobs, it’s still not clear who will lead Berkshire after Buffett is gone.
Weschler founded Peninsula Capital in 1999 and is a managing partner of the firm, based in Charlottesville, Va. The fund makes investments in publicly traded companies. Peninsula Capital held a concentrated portfolio of nine stocks as of June 30 that was worth nearly $2 billion, say documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Associated Press
