“ Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”

“Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”

Nick Names

Five Sigma EventForrest Gump of

Finance

Oracle of OmahaWizard of OmahaSage of Omaha

Omaha’s plain dealer

The corn-fed capitalist

If you believe what Warren says, you could teach the

whole (portfolio management) course in a

couple of weeks

Charlie Munger

Second richest man

How he remembers the crash

“I’m quite fond of 1929, since that’s when it all began for me. My dad was a stock salesman at the time, and after the crash came, in the fall, he was afraid to call anyone – all those people who’d been burned. So he just stayed home in the afternoon. And there wasn’t television then. Soooo… I was conceived on or about Nov.30, 1929 (and born nine months later, on Aug. 30, 1930), and I’ve forever had a kind of warm feeling about the Crash.”

Education

• Grade school in Omaha, Nebraska• Junior high and High school in

Washington D.C. • Bachelor of Science, University of

Nebraska (Lincoln campus), 1950. Got rejected by Harvard Business

School• Master of Science in Economics,

Columbia, 1951. Met Ben Graham.

Reason for closing the partnerships

• “I am out of step with present conditions. When the game is no longer played your way, it is only human to say the new approach is all wrong, bound to lead to trouble, and so on……….On one point, however, I am clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand (although I find it difficult to apply) even though it may mean forgoing large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don’t fully understand, have not practiced successfully, and which possible could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital.”

Brief History of Berkshire Hathaway

• Formed in 1889 as Berkshire Cotton Manufacturing

• Merged with Hathaway Manufacturing in 1955. At that time it produced 25 percent of the country’s cotton needs.

• BH suffered operating losses in the subsequent years

• Buffett partnership took control in 1965.

Brief History …….

• By 1970s the problems were growing, but Buffett did not want to sell.

“I won’t close down a business of sub-normal profitability merely to add a fraction of a point to our corporate returns. I also feel it inappropriate for even an exceptionally profitable company to fund an operation once it appears to have unending losses in prospect. Adam Smith would disagree with my first proposition and Karl Marx would disagree with my second; the middle ground, is the only position that leaves me comfortable.”

Brief History …….

• Finally sold the textile division in July o f1985.• Two important lessons:

– about corporate turnarounds: they seldom succeed.

– the textile division made enough money to buy an insurance company and that’s how the big story started.

• In 1967 BH purchased two Omaha based insurance companies: National Indemnity Company and National Fire & Marine Insurance Company.

Buffett’s EmpireBerkshire Hathaway Inc.

From 1996 Annual Report

• “Your goal as an investor should be simply to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily understood business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher, five, ten, and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet those standards – so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock.”

So what does this mean?

• Analyze stocks as businesses– What is value? and Is value > price?

• Concentrated Portfolio– Most diversification needs only 15 names

• Investment vs. Speculation– Not just facts and figures, but how they

combine

Circle of Competence

• “………. if you spend your time focusing on some industries, you’ll learn a lot about valuation.”

• “The most important thing in terms of your circle of competence is not how large the area of it is, but how well you’ve defined the perimeter. If you know where the edges are, you’re way better off than somebody that’s got one that’s five times as large but they get very fuzzy about the edges.”

• “I missed the play in cellular because cellular is outside of my circle of competence.”