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The Highlights of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2013 Shareholder Meeting

May 10, 2013
by Kelly Scott in berkshire hathaway // warren buffett with No Comments

Since Warren Buffett is a billionaire investor, people listen to him when he has something to say. Let’s take a look at what thousands heard him speak about at his annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting last weekend:

Yes, Berkshire Hathaway held its annual meeting last weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman, and Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO had plenty of advice to dispense.

Josh Funk, of the AP, shares some of their views on what it takes to lead to investment success.

Munger and Buffett both spoke with shareholders and mention that successful investors need to learn as much as they can about the business of which they plan to buy shares. They also need to stick to industries that they know and understand, and they mention that the right temperament is important.

Buffett: “You just have to avoid getting excited when other people are excited.”

Munger: “We’ve always tried to stay sane when other people like to go crazy. That’s a competitive advantage.”

The Motley Fool also shared two other classically Buffett quotes. They are:

“If they try to time their purchases they will do very well for their broker and not very well for themselves.”

“We’re not looking at the aspects of the stock, we’re looking at the aspects of the business.”

Even though Buffett is now 82 years old, his passion and intensity hasn’t diminished whatsoever. He claims that he is just as passionate about running Berkshire Hathaway today as he was when he was a much younger man. He still enjoys hunting for acquisitions, and he finds it quite enjoyable.

“You have to love something to do well at it. There’s nothing more fun for me than finding something new to add to Berkshire.”

A 30-year-old asked the investing duo about advice they would give themselves if they were 50 years younger. Here’s what they had to say:

Munger: We’re basically so old-fashioned that we’re boringly trite. We think you ought to keep plugging along, and stay rational, and stay energetic. Just all the old virtues still work.

Buffett: But find what turns you on.

Munger: Yeah, you have to work where you’re turned on. I don’t know about Warren, but I’ve never succeeded to any great extent in something I didn’t like doing.

Buffett: Charlie and I both started in the same grocery store and neither one of us are in the grocery business.

During the financial crisis in 2009, Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway backed iconic motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson and bought $300 million worth of debt. The company needed to raise cash, so they offered bonds with a 15%  return. Those bonds mature in 2014. Here’s what Warren Buffett had to say about this transaction:

“We did not think Harley-Davidson was going bankrupt.  Any company that gets customers to tattoo ads on their chests can’t be all that bad.”

The most pressing question from shareholders is who would replace Buffett when he finally retires as chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett was quoted by BRW as saying, “The key is preserving a culture and having a successor, a CEO that will have more brains, more energy, more passion for it than even I have… We’re solidly in agreement as to who that individual should be.”

Buffett did not disclose his eventual successor.

The Wall Street Journal brought up the issue of whether or not Warren Buffett’s son Howard would be the one to take over. Buffett responded by saying, “The probability of a mistake being made is one in a hundred. It’s not his job to run a business… He only has to think about whether the board and himself may need to change the CEO.”

Ex Buffett Employee David Sokol Slams Billionaire

Jan 8, 2013
by Kelly Scott in berkshire hathaway // warren buffett with No Comments

An ex-employee of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett is currently lashing out against his old boss.

David Sokol, who was once expected to succeed Warren Buffett as head honcho of Berkshire Hathaway when he retired, called out Buffett in regards to a Wall Street Journal article that came out over the weekend.

“I will never understand why Mr. Buffett chose to hurt my family in such a way, but given that he is rapidly approaching his judgement [sic] day I will leave his verdict to a higher power,” said David Sokol in a response that he e-mailed to WSJ.

The statement given by Sokol comes two years after he left Berkshire Hathaway. The reason he left was over questionable stock trades. This was not long after David’s lawyer announced that the United States SEC wasn’t planning on charging Sokol with insider trading.

During 2011, right after Sokol departed Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett said that Sobel’s actions were “inexplicable and inexcusable.”

It’s very rare that an ex-employee of Berkshire Hathaway feels the need to lash out against Warren Buffett. The billionaire investor often has a very good relationship with all of his executives and “gives them lots of room to manage their companies,” we learned from the Wall Street Journal.

The CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, often known as the Oracle of Omaha, is often a beloved figure in the financial community, with financial media, investors and even our current president regularly touting his ideas.

David Sokol, a native of Omaha just like Warren Buffett, appeared to be another big fan of Warren Buffett until the day that he resigned. In the past, Mr. Buffett once called Sokol “an enormously talented builder and operator,” we learned according to the Associated Press.

After leaving Warren Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway, Mr. Sokol went on to open up his own private equity firm called Teton Capital. David mentions that he doesn’t have any plans to rekindle his relationship with Warren Buffett anytime in the near future, reports Fox Business.

Sokol told Fox Business: “I haven’t spoken to Warren and I don’t want to… The notion that I violated some company policy is absurd.”

Buffett Cuts His Municipal Credit Bet By $8 Billion

Aug 21, 2012
by Kelly Scott in berkshire hathaway // investing // warren buffett with No Comments

It has come to my attention that Berkshire Hathaway is going to a eliminate half of its bullish $16 billion bet that it has against the quality of the credit of the US towns, cities and states. The company is also cutting its exposure to corporate debt at high yields, which they mentioned during a regulatory filing that they made this month.

As many investors already know, Warren Buffett believes that there is going to be an uptick in municipal bankruptcies across the United States. Buffett mentioned this last month when he talked about the three California cities that filed Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy just weeks apart from each other. He believes that because these cities filed bankruptcy, they basically opened the floodgates for others to follow.

Berkshire Hathaway actually sells protection against many of these towns, cities or states defaulting by a vehicle known as credit default swaps. The way these contracts work is Berkshire Hathaway is going to have to reimburse its counterparty for losses of debt if they were to ever file municipal bankruptcy.

Berkshire Hathaway told us that they have come to an agreement with a counterparty to eliminate $8.25 billion worth of all of these positions that they currently have. This portfolio consists of insurance over 500 state and municipal debt issuers, and the weighted average maturity is 8.8 years as of the end of June of this year, they said.

This termination was also reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

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