Pellom

I, too, noticed his posts, mostly on LinkedIn, a place where I didn't think it was appropriate. Not trying to play armchair oncologist, but in hindsight, one does have to wonder if he was in a more agitated state than is typical for him, given the tumor in his brain. His body was probably flashing warning signals. Anyway, Guy seems like a very good person, I've never seen anyone say a bad thing about him, and the Valuex culture and community he's built is very inspiring. I hate that he's going through this.

Just fyi, ThriftBooks has it $12 off right now.

He's had a very hard time finding managers he trusts. He's tried to step a couple of times but inevitably meddles until they're fired or leave. I thought Stephanie Linnartz had some interesting ideas to take share from lululemon in the female category by basically being the cheaper option, but she probably went too far in that direction for Plank to accept. The market doesn't trust him and the multiple shows it. He may take it private just so he doesn't have to kowtow to analysts any longer.

No clue, but Plank doesn't seem to me to be the kind of guy that would want a boss. If UA is getting out of the sponsorship business and is instead focusing on performance wear, I suppose it fits neatly at Fairfax the way Fruit of the Loom, Brooks and Russell Athletic fit at Berkshire.

I think UA is 100% going private. The question is whether Fairfax wants to own it, or they just see it as an arbitrage situation.

Chris is really good on podcasts. Much more thoughtful than his Twitter persona, which he admits is aggressive and played up to rage bait. He's been on the Richer, Wiser, Happier podcast and William Green gets the best out of him. I do generally agree with the idea "get your performance up instead of writing 200 pages a year on Berkshire" but I think his clients know exactly what they're getting when they invest with him. Along with this board, and weekly Substacks like Kingswell, Chris' work on Berkshire allows me to keep a huge Berkshire position and to follow the company regularly without being a sleuth. I'm grateful for that. Also, I'd guess that his performance is better than the 6% CAGR. Just knowing what he has in the portfolio, I think 2025 was probably better than the prior few years.

I'm not saying they aren't aligned. I'm saying the subtext was clear that Greg has a ceiling on his authority, and that presents future challenge as Warren's stake gets reduced and board members are forced off due to age. It's not tomorrow's problem, but there will be a time when it comes to a head.

Speaking of this, Warren got really cagey in the recent doc/interview about Greg being able to make "big" deals without the board's approval. The answer he landed on was essentially some version of, "well, if Greg wants to do a deal, then it means I want to do a deal, and the board will go along with it." But, obviously, Warren won't be around much longer. It will be interesting to see the board composition once Warren is gone.

Added a big chunk at the top it appears. Oh well.

I hope his health is OK. I imagine the recent scare, plus his net worth, has made him less inclined to do the advisory work each day.

Listened to the audiobook and it felt very similar to Hagstrom's "The Warren Buffett Way." It's clear there was not much in the way of hard investigative journalism here -- just talking to insiders and getting their story of the company. Still very interesting, nonetheless.

Looks like Guy might be closing up shop.

I'm assuming they recorded this around the last annual meeting. Amazing to see someone so lively both mentally and physically at 95. The annual meeting is a slog, an entire day of answering questions would drain anyone, but there's no doubt he's still doing good work in the office and is still a huge asset to the company. You can tell he just isn't having as much fun without Charlie.

More NTDOY. Too cheap to ignore here.

I don't know if it's going to happen this year, but I think GIL is an $80 stock. 20%-ish to go.

+21.77% across all managed accounts. I sold out of Ulta and Alphabet too quickly. Nintendo was a big winner, as were Markel and Coca-Cola FEMSA. I had some trading issues with IBKR in their non-professional advisor offering that threw much of my reporting off for the year. I think I've got it figured out heading into 2026.

I think the dark clouds he wrote about were more of the Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs variety. It's not as simple as the market is down a lot and there are things to buy. They want to be asked for help by a large institution that has exhausted all other options.

I'm not sure how to compare it to other past situations. The business is now an operating business and has been for what, 20-30 years? While I do think Buffett and Munger were just being publicly humble about not really sticking their noses in businesses they didn't know how to operate, Greg is the opposite. It's just going to be an entirely different thing once Buffett isn't making stock picks. An easy example I would point to is all the low hanging fruit headlines yearly about "Berkshire beat the market" or vice versa. When people read that they think it means the public equity portfolio beat the market.

Bought more NTDOY.

I'm not surprised he's hated. Wasn't most of his success laying off a bunch of people and leaning into automated tech/analytics?

Coming back around to this after the news about Todd leaving. I wonder if Bancroft is going to JP Morgan or maybe backfilling Todd at GEICO/Berkshire.

I imagine it would be very hard to work for the GOAT for a long time and then lose his leadership/direction. A natural time to retire or look for other opportunities. Nothing against Abel, of course, but many of us here would saw off our left arm to work in the office with Buffett every day.

Pick one of their subsidiaries and become an expert. Focus on operations and not investing.

Continuing to add to GRBK slowly.

Berkshire finally owns Google. What a day.