As Berkshire Hathaway marks Warren Buffett ‘s official retirement Wednesday, attention is shifting to a less settled part of the succession plan: the fate of its $300 billion equity portfolio. For decades, Berkshire’s stock holdings have reflected Buffett’s long-term investing judgment and his willingness to deploy capital aggressively during market turmoil. With no obvious successor possessing a comparable record in public equities, some analysts say Berkshire may ultimately scale back active stock selection, particularly given the size and concentration of the portfolio. “At some point the shoes are just too big to fill,” said Deiya Pernas, an analyst at Pernas Research. “He’s made some enormously large and tactical decisions. I don’t think that there’s going to be somebody who’s going to be able to make those types of decisions.” Buffett has said that Greg Abel , Berkshire’s new CEO effective this week, will make capital allocation decisions , a remit that includes the equity portfolio. Abel, a longtime operator who rose through Berkshire’s energy business, is widely respected inside the company. But he has not built a public track record as a stock picker, leaving some shareholders uneasy about whether Berkshire can continue to manage one of the world’s largest — and most concentrated — equity books without its legendary steward. Those concerns have intensified following the departure of Tod …
