CorpRaider

He probably really doesn't seem them as a grave health threat. W/R/T the compensation/agency problem, the only solution I see is an active owner who lets the agent know his role. We could do with a whole lot more of that if you ask me.

I'm reading the most recent biography about Hetty Green...meh. She was real cheap and seems to have straight up lied under oath many times.

Weird story bro.

Well all that junk about activists and PE shops is just marketing to me (or more accurately to managements and potential sellers of businesses). Seabury Stanton learned about how passive Mr. B can be and all he did was chisel him a little on the greenmail. Carl got AAPL to do what WEB advised what....a decade ago? Just saying, I doubt he has a problem with that. Winters, however, deserved to get nuked.

Damn, maybe I need to read this again. haha!

I will say Becky Quick did kind of push back a lot more this time with Mr. B. It was pretty good. Didn't you end up criticizing the compensation plan as well (non-critical, critical thing that Icahn highlighted for the world)? Also she sort of got him with the "oh evil PE shops are really LBO shops with tons of debt." Aren't you deeply and warmly in bed with 3g on a number of LBOs? Oh...well yes. Winters was actually outperforming until recently. Not as bad as I would have expected with his huge fee. I suppose he just annoyed me with the hyperbolic computations he came out with initially, and then he compounded it by continuing to bring BRK into it. Once he got the kind of tepid support from WEB, he should have let the man alone.

Buffett has been hanging out with Jay-Z too much. He said "keep my name out yo mouth, Winters."

Yeah, he should have let it go after the first round and after Buffett sort of chastised Coke along with him. Especially given his poor performance, high fees and the math errors in his original position on the compensation plan.

Winters shouldn't have brought Buffett into it after the initial response. But yeah, he just curb stomped him.

Bound and determined to find way to piss away their S/H capital, I mean grow into new areas. Awesome thing is dual voting structure means its even easier for them to tell outside S/H to go get stuffed.

R.I.P. Recent interview with Betty Liu from Bloomberg, after he got his diagnosis was really striking to me. He seemed really at peace.

I keep struggling with this question, but I think Merrill clinches it for me. I've read some accounts that MerrillEdge has ~$128 billion AUM with its robo-advisor. Venture capital shops are going insane over $1bil right now.

I believe Phil Goldstein has been active in a number of small and micro caps outside the CEF space. I've been toying the with idea of making a checklist type requirement that an owner-operator or activist or some other controlling non-passive shareholder must be in place before I invest in a company.

I agree that the traditional mutual fund, with the tax, cost and fee drags, is almost obsolete. I probably would never expect a large percentage to outperform over the long term (I mean, mathematically, as Jack Bogle has long pointed out, the average fund will underperform the index by its excess costs). I can, however, buy into the arguments that it has been even harder for the active value guys, with better processes and good long term track records, to outperform in this ripping extended bull market. Mr. Buffett, obviously, has been talking about this since the days of his partnerships. Then again, a simple, cheap, value strategy like RPV has managed to do well versus the indexes over the same period.

Avon declined to engage in discussions even after COTY (backed by BRK) raised bid to $24, if memory serves. The AVP board had a new spiffy CEO from JNJ, who was probably thrilling them with tales of a turnaround to come, so one can somewhat understand. Bart Becht is running Coty directly currently and both Coty and AVP cited good performance of their strategic partnership in Brazil in the most recent quarter (basically, as I understand it, plugging COTY products into AVP distribution). Disclosure: Long AVP.

Sounds like it is getting pretty frothy up there in the great white north. I though you guys were mostly sober, restrained, Jim Carey types. :D Anyone sort of looking forward to the next bear market, a little?

You're supposed to say, "Get spread-sheeted, nerds!" haha.

Often wrong, never in doubt.

There's also a CNN article which has a little bit more detail. The attorney who is helping with the estate mentions a focus on dividend paying stocks. He read the journal every day and was very frugal. It also says he was a mechanic in business with his brother and after his brother sold the garage, he became a part-time janitor in quasi-retirement. So that adds a little more color.

Neat story. I'm sure he was very proud to be able to provide such meaningful support to causes he deemed worthwhile.

Most disturbing: Pony tails and guayabera shirts.

I think the outside consultants are probably the guys hired to "kill the thesis." The analysts probably just monitor the fake mustache sales. "Selling like hotcakes boss." What did he say about JOE? I gather it was not, "I'm taking it over as my permanent capital vehicle. BB out suckas!"

Good question. I've been going back and forth.

AVP, CRC.

Well I will say all of this criticism of value investors and even value indices lately reminds me a lot of 2000. Although, RPV, VOE, VBR, PRF, etc...haven't underperformed.