New Delhi, May 6 -- Patience may be the greatest virtue, but few professional investors have the privilege of practising it. In real life, money managers live in constant fear that their investors will flee-and their jobs will be toast-if they fail to keep up with their benchmarks for several quarters or, heaven forbid, years.

The only living exception is Warren Buffett. And Greg Abel, Buffett's successor as Berkshire Hathaway's new CEO, is already having to come to terms with that reality.

At his first annual meeting as CEO, Abel preached the gospel of investing discipline against a backdrop of the worst stretch of underperformance for Berkshire's stock in a quarter century. The shares have lost 10.8% in the past 12 months, a 40.4 perc...