Nebraska Insurance

If Ajit Jain, vol McKinsey as a consultant two decades ago, he said a colleague, it would be the monitoring of insurance companies Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s investment company, although little about business .

Once in Berkshire, Jain placed ads in industry publications on the risk to companies and insurance companies $ 1 million or more in annual premiums.

“He said:” I think I am a full-page ads that say, ‘We are looking at any risk, send us your suggestions, “said John Parker, a colleague at McKinsey Jain.” It was so Buffett. Buffett Berkshire basically built with words, “Send us your job” and then only answer the phone, “said Parker, now principal of the consulting firm Katzenbach Partners of Chicago.

Today, Jain, 54, spoke the day after Buffett, Berkshire’s 75 years, Chairman and Chief Executive, and the cash-Jainhas Galantamin - $ 1.7 billion per year on average since 1998 - has contributed to making him a candidate for Buffett to investors successor.

Buffett’s admiration of the Jain of underwriting discipline places him on every list of potential successors, said David Winters, manager of a fine winter Green-advisers. “It was an incredible asset for the shareholders of Berkshire, over the years,” said Winters, Berkshire reserve for its own account, more than a decade. “The man has a very serious situation, Insurance brain.

Buffett, second richest in the world is fuelling human succession of interest last month, pledged to donate Berkshire shares worth more than $ 37 billion, or 85 percent of its shares in the company, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities.

He said in March that the Committee had considered the possibility that it might be unable to elect a successor less than three “reasonably young” top Berkshire executives.

He would not identify the board of directors is elected. Speculation investors this year has focused mainly on Jain, chairman of Berkshire a division of reinsurance - insurance for insurance companies - and David Sokol, 49, Chief Executive of Berkshire’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings.

Investors also mention Joseph Brandon, 47, the Chief Executive of General Re, a reinsurance unit of Berkshire, Richard Ulli Sant, 61, cours, NetJets, an operator of private jets and Tony Nicely, 63, Chief Executive of the car insurance company Geico Unit.

But Jain, born in India has been at the Investors’ lists of potential successors the longest, said Tom Russo, a partner at Gardner, Russo & Gardner.

“He personally supervised probably a commitment of funds for more Berkshire than anyone else over a very long period,” said Russo.

Jain specializes in so-called mega-catastrophe coverage on the risks, so that competitors. He assured the Sears Tower in Chicago, North America’s tallest building, and the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Based in Stamford, Connecticut, Jain group of about 30 people generates float, the pool of insurance premiums to invest before paying, says, 16.23 billion in 2005.

In 2005, Jain companies were responsible for $ 3.96 billion of 22 billion dollars of revenue generated by Berkshire insurance premium for the whole group. The last year, the company Jain $ 3.7 billion from $ 21.1 billion for the group, and in 2003 it has raised $ 4.4 billion $ 21.5 billion.

Jain’s focus on generating revenue after its entry in Berkshire in 1986 is reflected in an ad taken in the journal Business-assurance: “We are looking for more - more likely in which the premium of more than $ 1000000 Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Group currently has more than $ 2 billion surplus - that’s right, $ 2 billion. And because we reserve the risk itself rather than the off in the uncertain world of reinsurance, we have the flexibility to respond to the challenges your specific needs. ”

Investing in the installation of ways to liquidate the insurance business of his being helped Buffett second in wealth for Gates, chairman of Microsoft.Buffett ‘annual shareholder letters containing praise for Jain. In his letter of 2005, Buffett has called an “extraordinary Manager”. The year before he wrote that “the value Ajit Berkshire is enormous.” During the previous year, he said: “It is impossible to overestimate its importance for Berkshire.

Frank Betz, a fund manager at Carret Zane Capital Management, said that adjustments in Jain “Berkshire family” mixture with investors in the company annual meetings of the weekend and the rest attendees.Jain easel paintings is remember every card played, as amiably conversations with other players.

Bridge is part of the culture for Berkshire executives, investors and customers. Buffett plays with Jain and Gates, aims to Berkshire committee.

At a press conference in May in the company at the annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett said, it is recommended that his son, Howard, 51, the president, assist the new Director-General as “double protector of the culture.