Charlie Munger's 1984 Letter to Shareholders of Wesco

[farnamstreet]

I'm publishing all of the old Munger Letters. Here is the 1984 Letter.

 

Were Wesco running a national accounting partnership it would want a system where a high-ranked partner, free of business-retaining pressure, could reverse accounting decisions urged by field partners, so Wesco can hardly complain about the inconsistent messages from an audit-management system which forced Wesco in 1984 to change at year end quarterly income figures earlier reported. However, in thesis murky case, where we happen to know that one of the country's most eminent accountants agrees with the Wesco view, we must admit to minor irritation with the fates. Wesco makes special effort aimed at high-quality reporting to shareholders. (For instance, only with respect to competitively proprietary information, such as transactions in marketable securities, does Wesco consciously keep communication with shareholders to the legal minimum.) Thus when the audit quality-control system of its outside C.P.A. firm selects Wesco for forced restatement of numbers previously given shareholders, we feel much as if we were a duty-obsessed engineering system at Brigham Young University accidentally tear-gassed by the national guard in a necessary program to control campus unrest.

Full Letter -- >http://bit.ly/523Nim

[woodstove]

Thank you - good reading.

 

Para 4 under Precision Steel, "not very successful" probably should read "now very successful".