Warren Buffett will soon be out of a job, but at age 95, he’s probably not looking for a new one. Longtime admirer Jamie Dimon may have sprung for the next best thing by hiring his understudy.
The JPMorgan CEO has hired Todd Combs, one of Buffett’s two investment managers at Berkshire Hathaway, to head up a new $10 billion group at the bank and be his special advisor.
Bringing Combs into the JPMorgan fold might be as near as Dimon can get to having Buffett himself on his team.
“Dimon may very well have viewed Combs as a close proxy for Buffett himself,” David Kass, a finance professor and longtime Berkshire blogger, told Business Insider. “Although Dimon could not hire Buffett, he could hire one of his protégés.”
The “main impetus” for Dimon hiring Combs was likely his observations of the investor as a JPMorgan board member over the past nine years, John Longo, a finance professor, fund manager, and the author of “Buffett’s Tips,” told Business Insider.
But “the fact that he ran a large financial business (Geico), is a successful fund manager, and is a protégé of Warren Buffett certainly enhance his credentials,” Longo said.
He added that Combs has undoubtedly “learned a great deal” from Buffett, and JPMorgan now stands to benefit from that knowledge.
“Jamie deeply respects Warren Buffett and Todd Combs,” JPMorgan said in a statement to Business Insider. Geico declined to comment.
Surprise exit
Combs ran a hedge fund before Buffett hired him in 2010. He helped set up Haven, a healthcare joint venture between Berkshire, JPMorgan, and Amazon, that launched in 2018 but closed three years later.
He was appointed CEO of Berkshire-owned Geico in 2020, and has reshaped the auto insurer to help increase profits in recent years. Buffett applauded Combs for Geico’s “spectacular” improvement in his February letter to shareholders.
Combs’ departure was unexpected, as Buffett had originally planned for him to take over Berkshire’s vast portfolio once he and Charlie Munger were out of the picture.
But the legendary investor said during Berkshire’s past two shareholder meetings that his successor as CEO, Greg Abel, would have final say over how Berkshire’s capital is deployed. Berkshire announced a raft of leadership changes this week, ahead of Abel replacing Buffett on New Year’s Day.
In a press release announcing the move, Dimon drew a clear line between the master and the student: “Todd Combs is one of the greatest investors and leaders I’ve known, having successfully managed investments alongside the most respected and successful long-term investor of our time, Warren Buffett.”
The Buffett mark of approval
Dimon has frequently praised Buffett over the years.
After the Berkshire CEO announced in May that he would step down as CEO this year, Dimon said in a statement that Buffett “represents everything that is good about American capitalism and America itself.”
He also lauded his “integrity, optimism, and common sense,” and said he’d learned a great deal from him and was “honored to call him a friend.”
Dimon told the Financial Times this week that he was quickly impressed by Combs when Buffett introduced them in 2014. The pair caught up last month and Combs said he was intrigued by the new role at JPMorgan, he told the outlet. Dimon responded that if Combs was “remotely interested in this, we’re all in.”
Buffett’s seal of approval may have factored into Dimon’s decision to hire Combs, but the billionaire banker also said in Monday’s press release that he prized “Todd’s experience, character and judgment” and felt “honored” to have him on board.
In his new role at JPMorgan, Combs will lead the Strategic Investment Group, part of the bank’s Security and Resiliency Initiative, and focus on investing in sectors deemed important to national security, such as critical minerals and frontier technologies.
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