Charlie

Business lawyer.

Happy, healthy and successful new year! :) Thanks to Parsad for this great message board.

Thank you for sharing the video. :) I always loved reading interviews with John Templeton, because of his great mind and his great ideas.

"Awesome! Great read. Thanks for posting. Lots of great stuff." +1 :)

"Are you saying the RE is a negative for MCD from WEB's perspective?" yes, ROE of real estate is not good. Buffett owned McDonald´s probably when there was a lot of growth ahead.

"Also have wondered why BRK doesn't have MCD has a top holding. Perhaps just a matter of time." I think MCD is not a top holding, because eating habits change more than drinking habits and MCD owns a lot of real estate.

"Re: BRK becoming the largest US co., Warren showed the market cap at $270B at Omaha this year and openly stated that the next CEO will be heading a BRK with 2x market cap." Munger: “The first $200 billion [in market capitalization] was hard. The second $200b with the current momentum will be relatively easy." Buffett: "The businesses are in place to take it to $400 billion." :) [Pause for a moment and reflect on what this means – Munger and Buffett are calmly confident that Berkshire will eventually be twice as big as it is now.] http://www.sancaptrustco.com/documents/WkendwWarrenandCharlie.pdf

"BRK is the gift that keeps on giving." Some hours ago I thought about the same quote. :)

The business momentum is very strong. :) At P/B of 1,365 it´s not expensive. Just 14 % about buyback level. The railroad is fantastic. Cheers!

Nice short video from Mohnish Pabrai. :) http://vimeo.com/76545026 Cheers!

Merkel wins in Germany election. :) http://news.yahoo.com/germany-votes-merkel-set-third-term-030004347.html Cheers!

At P/B 1,436 there is still more upside. It´s 20% over buyback level. The nature of a very good business model is that it works very well. :)

Tilson is not very popular here, but I always like to read his opinion about Berkshire. :) Forbes: You still own Berkshire Hathaway? Tilson: Yes. Forbes: One of your top ten? Tilson: Yes, my second largest position today. Forbes: Would you buy it today? Tilson: This is the only stock I’ll admit that I do allow some emotion to creep into my analysis because Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are really my mentors in this business. I learned value investing from them through their writings, through attending their annual meetings. The underlying company, Berkshire Hathaway, is going gangbusters. They just reported an incredible quarter, and so every time the stock runs up a bunch, I re-do my calculation of intrinsic value and intrinsic value is going up as well. So the answer for Berkshire is the stock is around $160,000 per A-share. My estimate of intrinsic value is approaching $200,000 a share at this point. So I would say Berkshire today is call it an 85-cent dollar, probably. It’s about a 15% discount to intrinsic value. But I think Berkshire is an incredibly safe and sound business. I don’t think you’re going to get blind-sided by any derivatives or something that would be a risk with other insurance companies. And I think there’s always a chance that Warren Buffett finds another big deal to do that really juices intrinsic value beyond the 10% growth of just the operating businesses of Berkshire growing every year. So I would call it a safe, nicely growing but not incredibly cheap stock at this point, so I think it’s a good foundation for a conservative investor. I think if my choice was buy the S&P 500 index fund and hold it for the next five or ten years or buy Berkshire, I think odds are 80% to 90% that you will do better if you just sit there and hold Berkshire and forget about it. But it’s not as cheap as it was. The stock has had a nice run. A lot of stocks have had nice runs recently. But don’t fall into the “I missed it” trap with this one. Forbes: Incredibly, is it true Berkshire Hathaway now has more people on their companies’ payroll than General Electric? Tilson: Boy, I think I do recall that. They just bought Heinz. That deal hasn’t even gone through yet, but Berkshire Hathaway has something like 260,000 employees. So it’s certainly up there with one of the biggest by market cap. As of a month or two ago, anyway, it was the fifth largest company in the United States by market cap. I suspect it’ll be number three before not-too-long. What’s really amazing is the company is run by 20 people at headquarters Warren Buffett and a chief financial officer and a couple secretaries. So it’s taken decentralization almost to a comical extreme, but it works. http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2013/06/27/whitney-tilson-wisdom-on-value-artists-like-buffett-and-klarman/?partner=yahootix Cheers!

Read Notes from old Wesco Shareholder meetings and old OID´s with Munger. Happy learning. :) I´m still looking for old Munger partnership letters, but it seems that nobody have them. :(

Very good quarter. :) P/B is back to 1,35. Still more upside. After Swiss Re reported strong reinsurance numbers I sold my IBM shares and bought back my Berkshire shares. Again 100% of my portfolio in Berkshire. ;) If at the annual meeting a question is asked about austerity it could be from me. I asked if austerity in Europe makes sense. Great to see Buffett and Munger talking. They are still the smartest. :) I would love to be at the annual meeting. ;)

Following a good Buffett interview: :) Warren Buffett on Economy, Berkshire Succession Plan By Gabrielle Karol Published May 02, 2013 | FOXBusiness Despite the economy’s slow pace, Warren Buffett maintains the U.S. is functioning “pretty darn well now.” In an interview ahead of the annual Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) shareholder meeting, Buffett shared with FBN’s Liz Claman his opinions on everything from the state of the economy to Twitter, and from gold to women in the workplace. “I don’t think the U.S. is terribly vulnerable,” said the Oracle of Omaha, though he admitted the recovery is a lot slower than most would like. “But it is a recovery, and it’s a constant recovery – and you can say Europe has got plenty of problems,” said Buffett, drawing a line between the U.S. and the euro zone. Unrest abroad hasn’t shaken Buffett’s commitment to his investments, though. He reaffirmed his belief in investing for the long-term, and advised investors not to get scared off by headlines in the news. “I think that investors should own businesses they want to own for 5 or 10 years, and they shouldn’t worry about Cyprus or Europe or anything else, as long as they’re happy with the businesses they own,” Buffett said. And personally, he said current events did not stand to affect his own decisions: “I’m not going to sell the farm I own or the apartment house I own because of some news that may happen next week or next month.” Buffett Praises Both Bush and Obama’s Leadership Talking about the economy, Buffett credited both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, for their leadership throughout the recession. “Anybody can look back and second-guess,” said Buffett. Though he has a positive outlook on the future, Buffett is quick to underscore the severity of the recent financial crisis. “What we went through in 2008 was something like I’d never seen, and a lot of things that were a whole lot worse than what happened could have happened if we had handled things wrong,” Buffett said. ‘Not a Buyer of Gold or Silver’ Buffett shared a number of his positions with FBN's Liz Claman – including his hard and fast take on gold. “It just sits there, and you hope someone pays you more for it,” Buffett said. "If gold went to $1,000, I wouldn’t be a buyer, and if it went to $800 I wouldn’t be a buyer.” He then pointed out that in 1965, a share of Berkshire Hathaway was worth only $15, and gold was at $35. “You could have bought two shares of Berkshire for an ounce of gold – little more than two shares – and so far two shares of Berkshire has been better,” he said. And the same goes for silver. While Buffett admitted that silver has “more utility” than gold, he said definitively, “I’m not a buyer of gold or silver.” Buffett’s Succession Plan – and the Role of Women Earlier Thursday, Buffett made a web-viral splash by joining Twitter – a move he said was primarily to lead eyes to an article he wrote for Fortune magazine on the importance of women in the workplace. “I wanted to get out two messages. Women have been held back in a very major way both by exterior factors – primarily by exterior factors in the first century of this country – but also by interior factors,” he said. In the article, Buffett mentioned that he had a leg up on his two sisters just by the sheer fact that he had been born male – and not because of any superior intelligence or skills. He encouraged women to stop looking at themselves in “funhouse mirrors” and doubting their own abilities, citing Washington Post Publisher Katharine (Kay) Graham as an example of a woman who needed to conquer self-doubt in order to succeed. But when it came to his successor at Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett refused to share any details – but indicated that if something were to take him from the wheel in the short term, the next CEO will be a man. “If I pick up 13 spades and my heart goes out, the board tomorrow morning will have somebody, and I’ve used the pronoun ‘he,’ and it’s a ‘he,’” said Buffett. “And he will be very good.” But in 10 or 15 years’ time, Buffett said the CEO could very well be a woman, adding, “I hope it is.” Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2013/05/02/warren-buffett-on-economy-berkshire-succession-plan/#ixzz2SERk97h9

Good results from Swiss Re: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/02/swissre-idUSL6N0DJ0A320130502?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews&rpc=43 Cheers!

Berkshire Hathaway to Acquire Balance of IMC International Metalworking Companies http://finance.yahoo.com/news/berkshire-hathaway-acquire-balance-imc-120500596.html Cheers!

"Spain is in a full-on Depression, not unlike the 1930's in the U.S..." "Hotels are still a little pricey though (Idon't think the depression in US had hotels at such lofty prices). I checked Madrid about a week ago and it is comparable to other major European cities" House prices in Spain are still very expensive. No depression prices. "Hunger is growing in Greece as well. People are hungry and we know what that means." Next week I will make holiday in Greece. I don´t think they hunger. They eat very healthy and live with no stress, so they live very long. Check the greek food at the Berkshire annual meeting. It´s very good. Also no depression holiday prices in Greek. ;)

sorry, alreaedy posted here ;) http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/ko-coca-cola/msg113850/?topicseen#msg113850

Buffett at the Coca-Cola annual meeting: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-24/buffett-tells-coke-ceo-to-study-failure-to-avoid-complacency.html Cheers!

Interesting article from George Soros: http://www.georgesoros.com/interviews-speeches/entry/how_to_save_the_european_union_from_the_euro_crisis/ Cheers!

giofranchi, do you know the Ferrero business in Italy? It is probably the best company in Italy I know of. It is a confectionery company, which sells Ferrero Rocher, Kinder Schokolade, Hanuta, Nutella, Tic Tac etc. It´s like See´s Candy, but much, much bigger. And you get addicted to this stuff. ;) The Ferrero family is on the Forbes list with $20,4 billion. It would be a wonderful purchase for Berkshire Hathaway. What do you think?

"On the other hand, I am completely unconvinced that the southern european countries are able to actually have that adult conversation and actually take the bad tasting medicine. I hear ridiculous denial from people when I travel to France. In Spain, I wander around in disbelief about how things are run...or are not run. The Greeks that I have spoken to point the finger at the Germans for their problems. All of this is unbelievable." +1 Germany pay probably most of the bills and get in exchange most of the insults. That´s ridiculous. There is a lot of self-denial and unability to look at one´s own faults in southern europe. Sorry to everybody I have insulted. ;) giofranchi, do you think the Euro is overvalued?

another good excerpt from the video :) People tend to "focus too much on what the government's done, and to give them either credit or blame," Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway-BRKB, said in a recent interview conducted by the chief executive officer of Business Wire, the Berkshire subsidiary that distributes press releases. "The real credit belongs to our system." The U.S. economy "is coming back because of the natural juices of capitalism and not because of government," Buffett said. "We have a wonderful system that eventually is self-cleansing and always moves forward." "We went from a wooded land to an incredible, absolute abundance of riches" because the U.S. has had a system that can "unleash human potential," he said. "Never bet against what humans can accomplish if they're operating in the right soil. And we have the right soil."