Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
This is the 50th anniversary of Warren Buffett’s buying control of Berkshire Hathaway. The recently published annual shareholder letter chronicles how Buffett came to control and transform Berkshire.
To understand the evolution of Buffett’s investment process, it’s important to know his history with Berkshire. I wasn’t familiar with the background, so I will recap that in this column and follow up in my March 30 column with investing lessons learned.
Buffett noted that Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates’ board minutes from 1954 stated this grim fact: “The textile industry in New England started going out of business forty years ago.” A year later, Berkshire combined with Hathaway Manufacturing to create a firm with 14 plants and 10,000 employees. Buffett noted what started as a merger “soon morphed into a suicide pact,” as the company lost money and closed nine plants over seven years.
Buffett’s interest was piqued when he noticed Berkshire sometimes used the proceeds from liquidating plants to repurchase stock. In December 1962, Berkshire’s stock was selling for $7.50, a huge discount to working capital (think cash) of $10.25 and book value (think assets minus liabilities) of $20.20.
Buffett Partnership Ltd., an investing entity managed by Buffett and comprising virtually his entire net worth, started accumulating a stake that would grow to 7 percent of Berkshire’s 1.58 million shares outstanding by 1964.
Buffett said buying the stock at such a large discount was akin to picking up a discarded cigar butt. “Though the stub might be ugly and soggy, the puff would be free.”
As Buffett anticipated, Berkshire closed two additional plants and sought to repurchase shares with the proceeds. Berkshire’s CEO at the time, Seabury Stanton, asked Buffett at what price he would sell his shares. They agreed to a price of $11.50.
Thus, Buffett was surprised when Berkshire sent a letter to shareholders on May 6, 1964, offering to buy 225,000 shares at $11.375.
Irritated that Stanton had reneged on their deal. Buffett not only didn’t sell his shares back to the company; he more than tripled the Buffett Partnership stake to 392,633 shares, or 39 percent of the 1.02 million shares that were outstanding when he formally took control in April 1965.
If Buffett had tendered his shares at $11.375, Buffett Partnership’s gain would have been 50 percent. However, for want of an eighth of a point and perhaps some maturity on both sides, Stanton lost his job and Buffett found himself with 25 percent of Buffett Partnership’s capital invested in a dying business. As the result of a “monumentally stupid decision,” he became “the dog who caught the car.”
Ben Graham was Buffett’s mentor and taught him the technique of buying mediocre businesses trading at bargain prices. Though Buffett had done well investing in these “discarded cigar butts,” Charlie Munger, Buffett’s longtime business partner, convinced him that he needed to “forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.”
This monumental paradigm shift would become Buffett’s blueprint and lead to the value of a $1,000 investment in Berkshire when Buffett took over in 1965 increasing to $12.3 million at the end of February 2015.•
__________
Kim is the chief operating officer and chief compliance officer for Kirr Marbach & Co. LLC, an investment adviser based in Columbus, Indiana. He can be reached at (812) 376-9444 or mickey@kirrmar.com.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.