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I don't care of Ajit or Greg Abel...


Sinbius

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While I've owned my shares of Berkshire since inheritance I do remember best the period of 1999 and there abouts.  Valueline would do their report on Berkshire and state that there would be little growth of any kind in sales, usually they'd state 6%, and profits then of $1.2 billion were likely not attainable in the next few years.  While making these typical-for-Berkshire forecasts or targets Valueline would state that GE $180 bil sales and $30 bil of (fake) profits would grow earnings 17-18% for years to come.  Valueline was equally positive on Intel, the growth of sales and profits there was an expected 25%.

 

So Berk had back then sales of about $30 bil and profits of around $1 bil and growth forecasts were simply pathetic.   The focus was on the growth sectors of technology and the view that "the Internet is just beginning."  

 

Interestingly to me today is that Berk and likely Buffett have increased their energy allocations.  I have for decades participated on Berkshire forum boards, the latest for many years has been the Motley Fool board.   Recently after the trend on that board were comments of pretty intense criticisms towards Buffett for buying OXY instead of Google I simply made a short statement that I "guessed" that energy may, just may, be the better investment going forward.  Not only were my comments removed I was permanantly kicked off the Berkshire board.  No bad language, no over-the-top expertise type comments, just energy related.

 

So we are in an era where both Berkshire and energy are off-topic for those "seeking alpha" - we are almost all in agreement that Berkshire lacks growth characteristics.  That's where we are and it will be interesting to see what happens from here.

 

 

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On 6/27/2022 at 5:02 PM, Munger_Disciple said:

I think everyone should just relax. We would have Ajit, the best insurance exec in the world running insurance ops and Greg, the best energy exec in the world running everything else + filling the CEO role. I hope Ted becomes the next Warren for investments. Though it is unlikely Greg would have Warren's breadth across multiple businesses, most of the internal reinvestment of Berkshire earnings is likely to go towards energy & utilities, which is Greg's wheelhouse. So we will do fine with him as CEO. All in all, we are in good shape post-Buffett. 

Well said.

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