Poor Charlie

That's indeed the impression I get following him on Twitter. But I've seen all his old letters. They're off-the-charts accurate with both macro and company-specific details (this includes his other fund: Scion Asia Opportunities). It's some of the most thoughtful stuff I've read (I can see why Greenblatt called him the best analyst he'd ever seen). I have a hard time reconciling the Burry you see on Twitter with the Burry that wrote those letters.

My understanding is that Colson was carved out of Marmon so that Bob Pritzker would have something to do after Marmon was sold to Berkshire. Perhaps there was an implicit/explicit agreement to sell it back to Marmon later (similar to Berkshire's acquisiton of the remaining 40% of Marmon). I don't know about Angelo Pantaleo, but Marmon has had some world-class CEOs: Bob Pritzker, John Nichols, Frank Ptak. Both John and Frank trained under Sid Cathcart, one of the best industrial managers of the 20th century. Frank left Marmon for Madison Industries, another company that would be a great Berkshire holding.

Thanks Jaygo! I'm glad you like the posts.

FYI - I uploaded some of my Dempster files to Twitter a few months ago:

BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor and Forbes ran cover stories on BA in the late 80s and early 90s. You might like those. There's also an old Bernstein report on LVMH that I enjoyed. Erwan Rambourg, an ex-LVMH employee and HSBC analyst, wrote several books on the luxury industry. I haven't read them, but I imagine they include details on BA and LVMH.

See's has grown in the HSDs without a year-over-year decline for more than 75 years. Cash conversion is like 99%. Think of it as an annuity that grows at 2x GDP. What's that worth in a DCF? I think Buffett relies on pattern recognition more than people realize (how else can he make a yes/no decision in just a few minutes?). It could be chocolate, coatings, castings or cutting tools. He doesn't care as long as the financials look a certain way. And if you look at See's annual reports from the 1960s, you'll notice the financial results map to other deals he has done (or wanted to do).

Daily Journal filed their 10Q this afternoon: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/783412/000143774922012145/djco20220331_10q.htm Notes: Realized a loss of $33 million ($24 million net) on Alibaba (bought at $209 per share; sold at $101 per share). Redeployed the Alibaba proceeds into another non-US security (or securities?). Increased margin debt by $6 million.

My guess: Duan Yongping. He won the 2006 GLIDE lunch auction, and they've probably kept in touch since (given Duan's knowledge on investing, china, electronics, apple, etc.).

The deal closes after an Allegheny shareholder vote. Until then, they can accept competing offers (with no deal-break fee paid to Berkshire).

Suprised Buffett never pushed for a deal-break fee. They're effectively giving Alleghany a free put option until the shareholder vote. I don't expect this deal to close. It's like Buffett wants Berkshire to be the stalking horse for an Alleghany auction.

Two comments: Buffett and Munger have been making concentrated bets since the 1950s. As far as I can tell, neither one has lost more than a few percentage points of equity capital on a single investment. This, from my point of view, is the most impressive thing about their careers. Can you think of any other investors who have done this? I can't. In the entities he has overseen, Munger has made especially concentrated investments (New America Fund = Lee Enterprises; Blue Chip Stamps = RJ Reynolds and Buffalo News; Wesco = Freddie Mac and Coca-Cola; Daily Journal = TBTF banks). He was often criticized as reckless when he made them (e.g., RJ Reynolds, Buffalo News, Freddie Mac and the TBTF banks), but they have all been massive successes. Munger's investments in Alibaba and the undisclosed non-US security (which I suspect is Tencent or some other Chinese company) are large, amounting to 60 percent of Daily Journal's $250 million in equity capital at cost. It's also odd he's taking on additional margin debt to make them. But I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.

I have some of the Berkshire and Wesco transcripts from the late 80s and early 90s, which I can send you when I’m back in the office. I’m also looking for old OIDs. If anyone has them (or knows where to get them), please send me a PM.

Try the link below: https://48b401b4-d9c2-4d42-b9e8-8a13fc730ef4.filesusr.com/ugd/f2fd00_ad8cd425a77244c98186a35cd5864d84.pdf For those interested, I’ve also posted some of my detailed long-term spreadsheets, including Berkshire (56 years), Coca-Cola (100 years), Microsoft (40 years), Apple (42 years), etc. And I’ll be posting more financials and a bunch of other stuff (old annual reports, articles, notes, letters, etc.) when I get some time. https://www.turtlebay.io/financials

Yeah. I left out the parts where he ripped into everybody for not preparing.

I found an old file with my notes from a lecture Li Lu gave in 2012. If you're interested, I cleaned it up and posted it online: https://48b401b4-d9c2-4d42-b9e8-8a13fc730ef4.filesusr.com/ugd/f2fd00_daf48b49e7614ed7b4a8235885c59be8.pdf Disclaimer: This isn't a transcript. It's an edited document from rough notes I took nearly 10 years ago, so please forgive my errors and omissions.