Mephistopheles

Yeah but he made up for it by stealing Dell at a good price. :P

Was that really the price he paid after the salad oil collapse??

What about the issue of carried interest? The article that GregS posted points this out. It might be worth it to dish out the extra money for a fund just to take advantage of carried interest. Thoughts?

Depending on how well your initial investors trust you and the legal requirements of your state, it might be okay to skip the audit for say, the first year or two. After two years you will hopefully have a good track record, and people outside of immediate family/friends may become interested, but not without an audit. So you can do a retroactive audit of the previous years at that point to show these potential clients. Just an idea. I've spoken with an audit firm about this and they said it's possible.

Can you point to where in the Ackman slides it says preferred could swap for common? On slide 109 he talks about the Treasury converting their preferred, but I don't see anything about the publicly trade ones. Also, from looking at some of the prospectuses I can see they are non-convertible. So am just curious to see how the preferred can be converted, absent Fairholme's plan not being implemented.

Ah! Of course. Thanks! http://www.marketfolly.com/2009/02/warren-buffett-buys-tiffanys-and-harley.html Thanks. I knew about the HOG deal, I was just thrown off by the shorthand "HD" which is also the ticker for Home Depot.

Let's say the GSEs have a similar outcome, and it takes 12 years as well. It wouldn't be that great of a return for the preferreds. And the dividends I believe are non-cumulative so those wouldn't be paid either, right?

Ah! Of course. Thanks!

Thanks "When we bought HD bonds at 15 we should have bought the stock, but that will always be the case." Is this a typo or did Buffett really buy HD bonds? And did they really trade down to 15?

Separate topic - how/where did you run into him? Did he talk about anything else?

After reading this one and Einhorn's book, you have to wonder how much it pays to be publicly shorting a stock. IMO, its much less painful do the research and wait to short into an decline. In hindsight I'd say that's easy but you have to be good at timing and forecasting macro factors, both of which are nearly impossible. And then you may not get the benefit of buying so cheaply.

How did you like it? It certainly made me appreciate how much work Ackman puts into his ideas... I thought it was great. I agree that you appreciate how much work he put it's in. I think he read about 150,000 pages of material for this trade. But you also get to appreciate the conviction, perseverance, and courage it takes to pull something like this off.

Just finished Confidence Game, about Bill Ackman's MBIA short.

I vote Palantir for "Most disturbing profile picture." Muscleman has my vote

Asking questions about mistakes (or perceived mistakes) does not equal complaining. Asking a great investor questions about investing, by definition usually means that you are not as good of an investor as he is. That's the whole point of a Q&A. Putting someone down who has valid questions, just because they are about mistakes, ironically goes against much of what Buffett has preached in regards to investing, about always thinking about the downside, etc. He himself says that he wants tough questions, rather than easy ones. As a value investor he recognizes the importance of understanding your past mistakes rather than being blind to them. What is also ironic about this whole conversation is that Buffett has specifically stated that he doesn't give special treatment to large shareholders, and he wants to cater to the small ones just as much as he does to the large ones. Whether or not an investor owns 100 shares, 10 million shares, or 1 share, matters to many CEOs, but not Buffett.

There you go - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aisl_3YDx6vMdGZ2QnloNDJUNmlvS2lVcXFkdDA2RFE&usp=drive_web#gid=0 Thanks Siddharth!

Thanks for posting. There was a thread on here some time ago with a Google spreadsheet listing all the good shareholder/investor letters. Can anyone share the link to that spreadsheet if they have it? Thanks

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I would think industry analysis, and competitor knowledge matters. Remember Buffett bought Iscar after reading a page and half letter, and meeting with the CEO for like half an hour? I think it is fair to say that he had spent many hours prior to this over the course of his lifetime researching the industry, or suppliers, or customers, or competitors. So by the time he saw the deal he had already done his homework, without even knowing about this company. But then again he did say he got the letter from a "company he never heard of". That wouldn't make much sense if he knew the industry so well.

Ted Weschler said that he spends a minimum of 500 hours researching a stock before investing in it. If he spends 10 hours/day only on one idea, this is a minimum of 50 days of research. How much time do you spend? This doesn't count research you do after you have already invested. I must confess that I probably spend only 10-20 hours before taking the plunge. Of course, this should also include time you've spent indirectly on an idea. For example, if you've spent 500 hours on BAC, many of those hours should go towards C as well. In this way, Buffett has probably accumulated tens of thousands of hours on multiple industries and companies.

Anytime :)

I just called them today and they said they haven't sent them out yet.

You can show your brokerage statement for proof that you own the shares. And you can probably get the proxy through your broker, which includes a post card that you can print out and send in to receive your materials. You should probably do that soon though.

Gangtstas. ;) Giving clients great performance and very reasonable fees. I wish more folks were like that. Do you happen to know what the fees are? Thanks

Maybe a lawyer can answer this, but what happens if shareholders win the case but the companies are put into wind down? Do shareholders still have a claim on past taken profits? Or only future ones?

Anyone find it interesting that he had a cherry coke and a classic coke with him on the show? I thought he only drinks cherry.