Warren Buffett has chosen another fund manager to further his succession plan, and once again it’s a candidate who has stayed pretty much out of the spotlight. Ted Wechsler of Peninsula Capital Advisors in Charlottesville, Va., will become the latest addition to the Berkshire Hathaway team in 2012, when he will join Todd Combs in managing the company’s equity portfolios.
Reuters reported that Wechsler, 50, has produced some impressive returns for his firm, handling about $400 million out of the firm’s approximately $2 billion under management. Over the last 11 years, Wechsler has brought in 1,236% in gains, say investors. Outside of his own firm, though, Wechsler is not well known; several of Buffett’s biographers, as well as Mario Gabelli, indicated that they were not familiar with his work. Combs was equally obscure when he joined Berkshire Hathaway.
Wechsler has been interested in Buffett for a while, according to the report, even winning the opportunity to lunch with the Oracle of Omaha twice in the last two years by bidding millions for charity—and then keeping it anonymous, even changing the usual New York steakhouse venue for somewhere on Buffett’s own patch in Omaha, Neb.