Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett born August 30, 1930 is an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the best-known fundamental investors in the world as a result of his immense investment success possessing a net worth of $104 billion as of March 2023 making him the fifth-richest person in the world.
Buffett was born in Omaha Nebraska. He developed an interest in business and investing during his youth, eventually entering the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947 before transferring to and graduating from the University of Nebraska at 19. He went on to graduate from Columbia Business School where he molded his investment philosophy around the concept of value investing pioneered by Benjamin Graham. He attended New York Institute of Finance to focus on his economics background and soon after began various investment business partnerships, including one with Graham. He created Buffett Partnership, Ltd in 1956 and his investment firm eventually acquired a textile manufacturing firm called Berkshire Hathaway, assuming its name to create a diversified holding company, and later as the company's chairman and majority shareholder in 1970. In 1978, Charlie Manger joined Buffett as vice-chairman.
Since 1970, Buffett has presided as the chairman and largest shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway one of America's largest holding companies and world's leading corporate conglomerates. He has been referred to as the "Oracle" or "Sage" of Omaha by global media as a result of having accumulated a massive fortune derived from his business and investment success. He is noted for his adherence to the principles of value investing, and his personal frugality despite his vast wealth.
Buffett is also a noted philanthropist, having pledged to give away 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropic causes, primarily via the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He founded The Giving Pledge in 2010 with Bill Gates whereby billionaires pledge to give away at least half of their fortunes.
Early life and education
Buffett was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, the second of three children and the only son of Leila née Stahl and Congressman Howard Buffett. He began his education at Rose Hill Elementary School. In 1942, his father was elected to the first of four terms in the United States Congress, and after moving with his family to Washington D.C., Warren finished elementary school, attended Alice Deal Junior High School and graduated from what was then Woodrow Wilson High School in 1947, where his senior yearbook picture reads: "likes math; a future stockbroker". After finishing high school and finding success with his side entrepreneurial and investment ventures, Buffett wanted to skip college to go directly into business but was overruled by his father.
Buffett displayed an interest in business and investing at a young age. He was inspired by a book he borrowed from the Omaha public library at age seven, One Thousand Ways to Make $1000. Much of Buffett's early childhood years were enlivened with entrepreneurial ventures. In one of his first business ventures, Buffett sold chewing gum, Coca-Cola, and weekly magazines door to door. He worked in his grandfather's grocery store. While still in high school, he made money delivering newspapers, selling golf balls and stamps, and detailing cars, among other means. On his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route.In 1945, as a high school sophomore, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine. which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months they owned several machines in three different barber shops across Omaha. They later sold the business to a war veteran for a tidy sum of $1200.
Investor Benjamin Graham influenced young Buffett.
Buffett's interest in the stock market and investing dated to schoolboy days he spent in the customers' lounge of a regional stock brokerage near his father's own brokerage office. His father took interest in educating the young Warren, at one point taking him to visit the New York Stock Exchange when he was 10. At 11, he bought three shares of Cities Service Preferred for himself, and three for his sister Doris Buffett (who also became a philanthropist). At 15, Warren made more than $175 monthly delivering Washington Post newspapers. In high school, he invested in a business owned by his father and bought a 40-acre farm worked by a tenant farmer. He bought the land when he was 14 years old with $1,200 of his savings. By the time he finished college, Buffett had amassed $9,800 in savings about $112,000 today.
In 1947, Buffett matriculated at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He would have preferred to focus on his business ventures, but enrolled due to pressure from his father. Warren studied there for two years and joined the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. He then transferred to the University of Nebraska where at 19.He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in business administration. After being rejected by Harvard Business School, Buffett enrolled at Columbia Business School of Columbia University upon learning that Benjamin Graham taught there. He earned a Master of Science in economics from Columbia in 1951. After graduating, Buffett attended the New York Institute of Finance.
The basic ideas of investing are to look at stocks as business, use the market's fluctuations to your advantage, and seek a margin of safety. That's what Ben Graham taught us. A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing.
— Warren Buffett
Business career
Early business career
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
In 1951 Buffett discovered that Graham was on the board of GEICO insurance. Taking a train to Washington D.C. on a Saturday. He knocked on the door of GEICO's headquarters until a janitor admitted him. There he met Davidson, GEICO's vice president, and the two discussed the insurance business for hours. Davidson would eventually become Buffett's lifelong friend and a lasting influence and would later recall that he found Buffett to be an "extraordinary man" after only fifteen minutes. Buffett wanted to work on Wall Street but both his father and Ben Graham urged him not to. He offered to work for Graham for free but Graham refused.
Buffett returned to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker while taking a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. Using what he learned, he felt confident enough to teach an "Investment Principles" night class at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. The average age of his students was more than twice his own. During this time he also purchased a Sinclair gas station as a side investment but it was unsuccessful.
In 1952 Buffett married Susan Thompson at Dundee Presbyterian Church. The next year they had their first child, Susan Alice. In 1954, Buffett accepted a job at Benjamin Graham's partnership. His starting salary was $12,000 a year (about $121,000 today). There he worked closely with Walter . Graham was a tough boss. He was adamant that stocks provide a wide margin of safety after weighing the trade-off between their price and their intrinsic value. That same year the Buffett's had their second child Howard Graham. In 1956 Benjamin Graham retired and closed his partnership. At this time Buffett's personal savings were over $174,000 (about $1.73 million today) and concurrently founded Buffett Partnership Ltd.
In 1957, Buffett operated three investment partnerships. He purchased a five-bedroom stucco house in Omaha, where he still lives, for $31,500 In 1958 the Buffett's' third child, Peter Andrew, was born. Buffett operated five partnerships that year. In 1959, the company grew to six partnerships and Buffett met future partner Charlie Manger. By 1960 Buffett operated seven investment partnerships. He asked one of his partners a doctor to find ten other doctors willing to invest $10 ,000 each in his partnership. Eventually eleven agreed, and Buffett pooled their money with a mere $100 original investment of his own.
In 1961, Buffett revealed that 35% of the partnership's assets were invested in the Sanborn Map Company. He explained that Sanborn stock sold for only $45 per share in 1958, but the company's investment portfolio was worth $65 per share. This meant that Sanborn's map business was being valued at "minus $20". Buffett eventually purchased 23% of the company's outstanding shares as an activist investor, obtaining a seat for himself on the board of directors, and allied with other dissatisfied shareholders to control 44% of the shares. To avoid a proxy fight, the board offered to repurchase shares at fair value, paying with a portion of its investment portfolio. 77% of the outstanding shares were turned in. Buffett had reaped a 50 percent return on investment in just two years.
Assuming Berkshire
In 1962, Buffett became a millionaire because of his partnerships, which in January 1962 had an excess of $7,178,500, of which over $1,025,000 belonged to Buffett. He merged these partnerships into one. Buffett invested in and eventually took control of a textile manufacturing company, Berkshire Hathaway. He began buying shares in Berkshire from Seabury Stanton the owner whom he later fired. Buffett's partnerships began purchasing shares at $7.60 per share. In 1965, when Buffett's partnerships began purchasing Berkshire aggressively they paid $14.86 per share while the company had working capital of $19 per share. This did not include the value of fixed assets factory and equipment). Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway at a board meeting and named a new president, Ken Chace to run the company. In 1966 Buffett closed the partnership to new money. He later claimed that the textile business had been his worst trade. He then moved the business into the insurance sector and, in 1985 the last of the mills that had been the core business of Berkshire Hathaway was sold.
In a second letter, Buffett announced his first investment in a private business — Hochschild, Kohn and Co, a privately owned Baltimore department store. In 1967, Berkshire paid out its first and only dividend of 10 cents. In 1969, Buffett liquidated the partnership and transferred their assets to his partners including shares of Berkshire Hathaway. In 1970, Buffett began writing his now-famous annual letters to shareholders. He lived solely on his salary of $50,000 per year and his outside investment income.
In 1973, Berkshire began to acquire stock in the Washington Post Company. Buffett became close friends with Katharine Graham, who controlled the company and its flagship newspaper and joined its board. In 1974, the SEC opened a formal investigation into Buffett and Berkshire's acquisition of Wesco Financial, due to possible conflict of interest. No charges were brought. In 1977, Berkshire indirectly purchased the Buffalo Evening News for $32.5 million. Antitrust charges started, instigated by its rival, the Buffalo Courier-Express. Both papers lost money until the Courier-Express folded in 1982.
In 1979, Berkshire began to acquire stock in ABC. Capital Cities announced a $3.5 billion purchase of ABC on March 18, 1985, surprising the media industry, as ABC was four times bigger than Capital Cities at the time. Buffett helped finance the deal in return for a 25% stake in the combined company. The newly merged company, known as Capital Cities/ABC (or CapCities/ABC), was forced to sell some stations due to Federal Communications Commission ownership rules. The two companies also owned several radio stations in the same markets.
In 1987, Berkshire Hathaway purchased a 12% stake in Salomon Inc., making it the largest shareholder and Buffett a director. In 1990 a scandal involving John Gutfreund (former CEO of Salomon Brothers) surfaced. A rogue trader, Paul Mozer, was submitting bids in excess of what was allowed by Treasury rules. When this was brought to Gutfreund's attention, he did not immediately suspend the rogue trader. Gutfreund left the company in August 1991. Buffett became chairman of Salomon until the crisis passed.
In 1988, Buffett began buying The Coca Cola Company stock, eventually purchasing up to 7% of the company for $1.02 billion. It would turn out to be one of Berkshire's most lucrative investments and one which it still holds.
As a billionaire
Buffett became a billionaire when Berkshire Hathaway began selling class A shares on May 29, 1990, with the market closing at $7,175 a share. In 1998 he acquired General Re (Gen Re) as a subsidiary in a deal that presented difficulties—according to the Rational Walk investment website, "underwriting standards proved to be inadequate", while a "problematic derivatives book" was resolved after numerous years and a significant loss. Gen Re later provided reinsurance after Buffett became involved with Maurice R. Greenberg at AIG in 2002.
During a 2005 investigation of an accounting fraud case involving AIG, Gen Re executives became implicated. On March 15, 2005, the AIG board forced Greenberg to resign from his post as chairman and CEO after New York state regulators claimed that AIG had engaged in questionable transactions and improper accounting. On February 9, 2006, AIG agreed to pay a $1.6 billion fine. In 2010, the U.S. government agreed to a $92 million settlement with Gen Re, allowing the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary to avoid prosecution in the AIG case. Gen Re also made a commitment to implement "corporate governance concessions", which required Berkshire Hathaway's chief financial officer to attend General Re's audit committee meetings and mandated the appointment of an independent director.
In 2002, Buffett entered in $11 billion worth of forward contracts to deliver U.S. dollars against other currencies. By April 2006, his total gain on these contracts was over $2 billion. Buffett announced in June 2006 that he would gradually give away 85% of his Berkshire holdings to five foundations in annual gifts of stock, starting in July 2006—the largest contribution going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2007, in a letter to shareholders Buffett announced that he was looking for a younger successor, or perhaps successors, to run his investment business.
2007–08 financial crisis
Buffett ran into criticism during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 and 2008, part of the Great Recession starting in 2007, that he had allocated capital too early resulting in suboptimal deals. "Buy American. I am." he wrote for an opinion piece published in the New York Times in 2008. Buffett called the downturn in the financial sector that started in 2007 "poetic justice". Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway suffered a 77% drop in earnings during Q3 2008 and several of his later deals suffered large mark-to-market losses.
Berkshire Hathaway acquired 10% perpetual preferred stock of Goldman Sachs. Some of Buffett's put options (European exercise at expiry only) that he wrote (sold) were running at around $6.73 billion mark-to-market losses as of late 2008. The scale of the potential loss prompted the SEC to demand that Berkshire produce, "a more robust disclosure" of factors used to value the contracts.Buffett also helped Dow Chemical pay for its $18.8 billion takeover of Rohm & Haas. He thus became the single largest shareholder in the enlarged group with his Berkshire Hathaway, which provided $3 billion, underlining his instrumental role during the crisis in debt and equity markets.
In 2008, Buffett became the richest person in the world, with a total net worth estimated at $62 billion by Forbes and at $58 billion by Yahoo, overtaking Bill Gates, who had been number one on the Forbes list for 13 consecutive years. In 2009, Gates regained the top position on the Forbes list with Buffett shifted to second place. Both of the men's values dropped, to $40 billion and $37 billion respectively—according to Forbes, Buffett lost $25 billion over a 12-month period during 2008/2009.
In October 2008, the media reported that Buffett had agreed to buy General Electric (GE) preferred stock. The operation included special incentives: he received an option to buy three billion shares of GE stock, at $22.25, over the five years following the agreement, and Buffett also received a 10% dividend (callable within three years). In February 2009, Buffett sold some Procter & Gamble Co. and Johnson & Johnson shares from his personal portfolio.
In addition to suggestions of mistiming, the wisdom in keeping some of Berkshire's major holdings, including The Coca-Cola Company, which in 1998 peaked at $86, raised questions. Buffett discussed the difficulties of knowing when to sell in the company's 2004 annual report:
That may seem easy to do when one looks through an always-clean rear-view mirror. Unfortunately however, it's the windshield through which investors must peer, and that glass is invariably fogged.
In March 2009, Buffett said in a cable television interview that the economy had "fallen off a cliff ... Not only has the economy slowed down a lot, but people have really changed their habits like I haven't seen". Additionally, Buffett feared that inflation levels that occurred in the 1970s—which led to years of painful stagflation—might re-emerge.
A capitalized Berkshire
On August 14 2014 the price of Berkshire Hathaway's shares hit $200,000 a share for the first time, capitalizing the company at $328 billion. While Buffett had given away much of his stock to charities by this time, he still held 321,000 shares worth $64.2 billion. On August 20, 2014, Berkshire Hathaway was fined $896,000 for failing to report December 9, 2013, purchase of shares in USG Corporation as required.
In 2009, Buffett invested $2.6 billion as a part of Swiss Re's campaign to raise equity capital.Berkshire Hathaway already owned a 3% stake, with rights to own more than 20%. Also in 2009, Buffett acquired Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. for $34 billion in cash and stock. Alice Schroeder, author of Snowball, said that a key reason for the purchase was to diversify Berkshire Hathaway from the financial industry.Measured by market capitalization in the Financial Times Global 500, Berkshire Hathaway was the eighteenth largest corporation in the world as of June 2009.
In 2009, Buffett divested his failed investment in ConocoPhillips, saying to his Berkshire investors,
I bought a large amount of ConocoPhillips stock when oil and gas prices were near their peak. I in no way anticipated the dramatic fall in energy prices that occurred in the last half of the year. I still believe the odds are good that oil sells far higher in the future than the current $40–$50 price. But so far I have been dead wrong. Even if prices should rise, moreover, the terrible timing of my purchase has cost Berkshire several billion dollars.
The merger with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) closed upon BNSF shareholder approval during Q1 of 2010. This deal was valued at approximately $44 billion (with $10 billion of outstanding BNSF debt) and represented an increase of the previously existing stake of 22%. In June 2010, Buffett defended the credit-rating agencies for their role in the US financial crisis, claiming:
Very, very few people could appreciate the bubble. That's the nature of bubbles – they're mass delusions.
On March 18, 2011, Goldman Sachs was given Federal Reserve approval to buy back Berkshire's preferred stock in Goldman. Buffett had been reluctant to give up the stock, which averaged $1.4 million in dividends per day, saying
I'm going to be the Osama bin Laden of capitalism. I'm on my way to an unknown destination in Asia where I'm going to look for a cave. If the U.S. Armed forces can't find Osama bin Laden in 10 years, let Goldman Sachs try to find me.
In November 2011, it was announced that over the course of the previous eight months, Buffett had bought 64 million shares of International Business Machine Corp (IBM) stock, worth around $11 billion. This unanticipated investment raised his stake in the company to around 5.5 percent—the largest stake in IBM alongside that of State Street Global Advisors. Buffett had said on numerous prior occasions that he would not invest in technology because he did not fully understand it so the move came as a surprise to many investors and observers. During the interview in which he revealed the investment to the public Buffett stated that he was impressed by the company's ability to retain corporate clients and said, "I don't know of any large company that really has been as specific on what they intend to do and how they intend to do it as IBM".
In May 2012, Buffett's acquisition of Media General, consisting of 63 newspapers in the south-eastern U.S., was announced.The company was the second news print purchase made by Buffett in one year.
Interim publisher James W. Hopson announced on July 18, 2013, that the Press of Atlantic City would be sold to Buffett's BH Media Group by ABARTA, a private holding company based in Pittsburgh, U.S. At the Berkshire shareholders meeting in May 2013, Buffett explained that he did not expect to "move the needle" at Berkshire with newspaper acquisitions, but he anticipates an annual return of 10 percent. The Press of Atlantic City became Berkshire's 30th daily newspaper following other purchases such as Virginia, U.S.' Roanoke Times and The Tulsa World in Oklahoma, U.S.
During a presentation to Georgetown University students in Washington, D.C., in late September 2013 Buffett compared the U.S. Federal Reserve to a hedge fund and stated that the bank is generating "$80 billion or $90 billion a year probably" in revenue for the U.S. government. Buffett also advocated further on the issue of wealth equality in society
We have learned to turn out lots of goods and services, but we haven't learned as well how to have everybody share in the bounty. The obligation of a society as prosperous as ours is to figure out how nobody gets left too far behind.
After the difficulties of the economic crisis, Buffett managed to bring its company back to its pre-recession standards: in Q2 2014, Berkshire Hathaway made $6.4 billion in net profit, the most it had ever made in a three-month period.
COVID-19 pandemic
In a June 2021 interview with CNBC Buffet said that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased economic inequality and bemoaned that most people are unaware that "hundreds of thousands or millions" of small businesses have been negatively impacted. He also stated that the markets and the economy will likely be unpredictable well into the post-pandemic recovery period, even with the Biden administration and the United States Federal Reserve having a plan in place. He said the unpredictability and the effects of COVID-19 are far from over
Investment philosophy
Warren Buffett's writings include his annual reports and various articles. Buffett is recognized by communicators as a great story-teller, as evidenced by his annual letters to shareholders. He has warned about the pernicious effects of inflation
The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislatures. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation.
— Buffett, Fortune (1977)
In his article, "The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville", Buffett rebutted the academic efficient-market hypothesis, that beating the S&P 500 was "pure chance", by highlighting the results achieved by a number of students of the Graham and Dodd value investing school of thought. In addition to himself, Buffett named Walter J. Schloss, Tom Knapp, Ed Anderson (Tweedy, Browne LLC), William J. Ruane (Sequoia Fund), Charlie Munger (Buffett's partner at Berkshire), Rick Guerin (Pacific Partners Ltd.), and Stan Perlmeter (Perlmeter Investments).[96] In his November 1999 Fortune article, he warned of investors' unrealistic expectations:
Let me summarize what I've been saying about the stock market: I think it's very hard to come up with a persuasive case that equities will over the next 17 years perform anything like—anything like—they've performed in the past 17. If I had to pick the most probable return, from appreciation and dividends combined, that investors in aggregate—repeat, aggregate—would earn in a world of constant interest rates, 2% inflation, and those ever hurtful frictional costs, it would be 6%!
— Buffett, Fortune (1999)
Index funds vis-à-vis active management
Buffett has been a supporter of index funds for people who are either not interested in managing their own money or don't have the time. Buffett is skeptical that active management can outperform the market in the long run, and has advised both individual and institutional investors to move their money to low-cost index funds that track broad, diversified stock market indices. Buffett said in one of his letters to shareholders that "when trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients". In 2007, Buffett made a bet with numerous managers that a simple S&P 500 index fund will outperform hedge funds that charge exorbitant fees. By 2017, the index fund was outperforming every hedge fund that made the bet against Buffett.
Using investment banks
Buffet has a long-standing aversion to using the services of investment banks via Berkshire Hathaway.This dynamic was also reported in Barron's, Insider, and Seeking Alpha, among others.
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