Byron Trott, the Goldman Sachs Group executive who left after 27 years to run a Berkshire Hathaway-financed venture fund, is fueling speculation that he may succeed Warren Buffett as head of the $130-billion company, reports Bloomberg.
Buffett has praised Trott for unearthing new investment opportunities. In September, Trott helped line up a $5-billion capital injection into New York-based Goldman Sachs from Berkshire.
“He’s a perfect candidate,” Alice Schroeder, author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life and now a Bloomberg news columnist, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “That’s so obvious.”
Buffett said in his 2005 and 2007 letters to shareholders that there were three internal candidates to replace him as CEO.
Debbie Bosanek, an assistant to Buffett, told Bloomberg yesterday that Berkshire “will have a modest investment” in Trott’s venture and didn’t respond to additional questions.