Buffett Says His Star Stock Pickers `Slightly' Beat the S&P 500

(Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s top stock-picking deputies have both “slightly” outperformed the S&P 500 Index since they started managing Berkshire Hathaway Inc. funds.

Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who together oversee about $25 billion, have almost identical performance since they joined, Buffett said Saturday at his firm’s annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Combs was hired by Berkshire in late 2010 and Weschler joined about a year later. While Buffett said their performance roughly amounts to matching the S&P 500, they’ve received some incentive pay that they only get if they beat that benchmark.

“It’s been better than I’ve done, so naturally I can’t criticize,” Buffett said.

Berkshire investors are closely monitoring the two men’s performance as they try to forecast how the company will fare beyond the tenure of its 87-year-old chairman, who has far surpassed the U.S. stock benchmark over his five decades at the helm.

Follow our TopLive blog on the annual meeting

Buffett said he doesn’t envision disclosing the two managers’ annual investing performance and praised both of their contributions to the company.

Combs and Weschler receive $1 million salaries and get 10 percent of the amount by which their portfolios outperform the S&P 500 on a three-year rolling basis, Buffett said at the 2012 annual meeting.

--With assistance from Katherine Chiglinsky

To contact the reporters on this story: Noah Buhayar in Seattle at nbuhayar@bloomberg.net, Sonali Basak in New York at sbasak7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Margaret Collins

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.