With just 15.8 employees (the 0.8 represents a part-timer) Berkshire Hathaway
oversees investments in 27 public companies ranging from American Express to
Zenith National Insurance. It also has full ownership of 65 private companies
ranging from Acme Building Brands to XTRA.
Warren Buffett is acknowledged by investors
around the world as the world’s best investor.
Suppose someone had the good sense to invest $10,000 in
one of Buffett’s original partnerships back in 1956 when
they first started. And suppose that when the partnerships
terminated in 1969, this person reinvested the proceeds in
Berkshire Hathaway. Today that person would be worth
over $280 million—after all taxes and expenses.
But there is much more to Warren Buffett. His integrity and no-compromise
approach to government and business follies has given him an increasingly high
profile in the press. Recent articles on and by Buffett include: Dividend Voodoo
(Washington Post), Avoiding a Mega-Catastrophe (Fortune), The Warren
Buffett You Don’t Know (Business Week) and Buffett: The Oracle of
Everything (Fortune).
The clarity of his thinking led to 25 percent of Forbes readers voting for him as
the next USA president.
Warren Buffett is a friendly, talkative person who likes to explain his ideas
using stories. This is the reason why over 15,000 people crowd into the annual
meetings of Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha — to hear him explain his investing
ideas using “down-home” yarns.
Despite this easy-going appearance, he is a person of definite action. When he
comes across something of value, he acts very quickly.
For example, each year in the annual report he invites owners of companies for
sale to contact him. In the report he lists criteria that need to be satisfied by
these companies. In the 2003 report he ended with the preference that such
businesses lie in the $5-20 billion range.
