Buffett Partnership Question

[NBL0303]

I have a question for any CoBFers that happen to sort of amateur Buffettologists as I am.  Years ago, I read through all of Warren's letters from his partnership years - or at least all of the ones that are publicly available which I believe is all of them.  What I should have done at that time, but, alas, did not do, was calculate at least in rough terms where the Buffett Partnership's returns came from.

 

So here is the question - if there are any Buffett Partnership experts out there - do you have any idea of the breakdown of where the Partnership's returns came from - basically split out per investment - during the 13 years of the Partnership?  The actual returns of the Partnership are well known - but I'm just wondering what the full bridge is.  Meaning, American Express generated such-and-such return which comprised about 8% of the Partnership's returns over those 13 years.  This probably cannot be calculated with geometric precision, but I believe rough answers could be backed into.  We all know Sanborn Maps, Dempster Mill, American Express and a few of the other investments from that era that worked out famously well.  I think this would be really interesting to see rough numbers on this.

 

Any help that anyone can provide would be much appreciated.  Thank you and cheers!

[rb]

I think if you have the partnership letters you can work it out. Also a lot of the returns came from risk arbitrage, or workouts as he called them.

[Dempster Diver]

`68 was the best year in both $$ and % (overall partnership up $40m or 58.8%, LP's +45.6%).  The letter recapping the year breaks down the $40m gain as follows: $22m from Generals-Private Owner, $7.3m from Workouts, $5.9m from Controls and $4.3m from Generals-Relatively Undervalued. 

[NBL0303]

`68 was the best year in both $$ and % (overall partnership up $40m or 58.8%, LP's +45.6%).  The letter recapping the year breaks down the $40m gain as follows: $22m from Generals-Private Owner, $7.3m from Workouts, $5.9m from Controls and $4.3m from Generals-Relatively Undervalued.

 

Thank you!

[John Hjorth]

NBL0303,

 

You can find gold [for you] in this topic from Racemize and DooDiligence. [ ; - ) ]