Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Warren Buffett, the world’s most famous investor, said he planned to step down from the helm of sprawling conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, the financial juggernaut he built up over the past six decades.The 94-year-old — known as the “Oracle of Omaha” — said he would propose that Greg Abel take over the leadership of Berkshire at the end of this year.“The time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year-end and I want to spring that on the directors and get that recommendation,” he said.Abel, 62, whom Buffett has previously named as his eventual successor, is vice-chair of Berkshire’s non-insurance operations. Buffett said he had not given Abel or Berkshire’s other directors any advance notice, making the announcement at the very end of a historic 60th annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.Berkshire is one of the world’s largest conglomerates, managing a portfolio of nearly 200 businesses. Buffett took it over in 1965 when it was a medium-sized textile maker.Buffett plans to convene a meeting on Sunday with Berkshire’s board of directors to answer questions about his decision. “Two of the directors who are my children know what I’m going to talk about,” he said. “For the rest of them, this will come as news”.He added that he “would still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases”, but that the mantle should pass fully to Abel.The crowd of tens of thousands of shareholders who had descended on Omaha for the event erupted into applause following the announcement. “This is absolutely monumental,” Christopher Rossbach, chief investment officer of longtime Berkshire shareholder J Stern & Co, said through tears as he left the arena on Saturday afternoon. “Berkshire Hathaway is an incredible business and an incredible achievement. It stands for everything that is best about American ca