Buy It Like Warren Buffett

It took him long enough.

At the end of 2004, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway had around $44 billion in cash. Ditto for 2005. And 2006. And, yes, 2007 as well.

At one point, more than 20% of Berkshire's assets were earning money market returns. While armchair investors complained that the company had amassed too much capital to continue its market-thrashing ways, Buffett simply sat on Berkshire's enormous pile of cash. And waited. And waited. And waited some more.

He refused to buy until the time was right.

The time is right
Buffett has called the current mess an "economic Pearl Harbor." He has also said, "In my adult lifetime, I don't think I've ever seen people as fearful economically as they are now."

These aren't just words. Mr. Greedy-When-Others-Are-Fearful has been stuffing money where his mouth is.

That $44 billion Berkshire had at the beginning of this year? By the end of June, Buffett had spent it down to $31 billion, in deals including Berkshire's purchase of Marmon Holdings, the Mars purchase of Wrigley, and the Dow Chemical takeover of Rohm & Haas. He even bought up auction-rate securities at bargain prices.

And lately, he's been accelerating. It's nice to have cash when the credit markets are frozen.

This fall, he has committed:

$4.7 billion to purchase Constellation Energy for $26.50 per share. (It had been trading above $100 at the beginning of the year.)

$5 billion to purchase perpetual preferred stock in Goldman Sachs. He not only gets the hefty 10% dividend, but also receives warrants allowing him to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 per share.

$3 billion to General Electric under terms similar to the Goldman Sachs deal -- except the preferred stock is callable for a 10% premium after three years. The warrants allow him to buy stock at $22.25 per share.

That's more than $20 billion spent over just one month if he chooses to exercise those warrants. Buffett's back, baby!

Buffett's buying. Should you?
Historically, average investors could simply ride Buffett's coattails to huge returns (think double the market's returns). But this time is different.

Buffett got sweetheart deals on both Goldman and GE. In the case of GE, he's earning 10% dividends on a company rated AAA -- and if he buys the warrants and they pan out, he'll earn even more.

When Buffett made these deals, he was providing much more than just capital. He was lending his credibility. That meant Goldman and GE were willing to give him great deals, in the hopes that his name alone would stabilize their stock prices for follow-on offerings.

In other words, don't buy into Goldman or General Electric just because Buffett has.

Learning from Buffett
Instead of buying what Buffett is buying, we should look to what his strategy has to teach us. So what can we learn from Buffett's shopping spree? Two things:

Invest for a lifetime.

Compile a watch list of attractive companies.

Buffett's pushing 80, but he hasn't been panicking and trying to make a quick buck, no matter what the market has done. Rather, he's been investing for the long term. In the past few years, that's meant waiting for opportunities to present themselves. Now that they are, he's striking with a vengeance.

And because of his patience, he hasn't had to compromise -- and he's getting great companies at great prices. When Constellation Energy's price dropped so precipitously in mid-September (from above $60 to the $20s), he was ready to pounce. Goldman and GE may have approached him, but you can be darn sure that he'd already done the bulk of his research beforehand.

Follow Buffett's lead
To be great investors, we need to be similarly prepared. In volatile times like these, Mr. Market presents us with loads of great values -- but just because a stock price has fallen, that doesn't mean a given company is a good value.

To wit: Here's a screen of companies that are trading at less than 50% of their 52-week highs, and are still above a market capitalization of $5 billion.

You've probably heard of most of these companies, and find their discounts tantalizing. A lot more great companies sell for half off in this market, too. How should you proceed?

One prudent way to take emotion out of the equation: Compile a list of companies you'd love to own for the long term, and the prices you'd love to pay for them. When one of your favorite companies goes on sale, you can revisit your list, ensure your investing thesis is still intact, and bend it like Buffett.


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Warren Buffett makes Berkshire Hathaway proud

Warren Buffett is in the news these days after publicly expressing his confidence in the future of American corporations and recently investing $8 billion to purchase interests in GE and Goldman Sachs. With the recent stock market turmoil, many look to the world’s wealthiest man for guidance, and rightly so. Buffett is widely recognised as an exceptional judge of corporate value. “The Oracle of Omaha,” as he is known, is arguably the most successful investor in history. Corporate leaders regularly make the trek to Omaha, Nebraska, seeking his wisdom. With so much attention on Buffett’s investment acumen, it’s easy to overlook another talent: motivating people. It’s one of a host of reasons his investments tend to outperform the market.

The talented managers who run Buffett’s companies remain with him because he keeps them engaged in their jobs. In Buffett’s own words, “Charlie [Charlie Munger, Buffett’s longtime business partner] and I mainly attend to capital allocation and the care and feeding of our key managers . . . Most of our managers are independently wealthy and it’s up to us to create a climate that encourages them to choose working with Berkshire over golfing or fishing.”

A closer look at Buffett shows, at least in part, how he does it. He imparts an inspiring identity to members of the Berkshire Hathaway family. The vision he constantly communicates is that Berkshire companies are well managed and have great people. It’s not unusual to hear him tell employees to “just keep on doing what you’re doing . . . we’re never going to tell a .400 hitter to change his batting stance.” Who wouldn’t be flattered to be praised by Buffett?

Buffett shows that he values people in several ways. He is trusting and forgiving. By investing for long periods in the companies he owns, Buffett indicates that he trusts his managers. He delegates decision-making authority, in his own words, “to the point of abdication.” And when a manager makes an honest mistake, he keeps it in perspective. One manager who informed Buffett that his business had to write off $350 million was stunned when Buffett told him, “We all make mistakes . . . if you don’t make mistakes, you can’t make decisions ...You can’t dwell on them.”

Buffett models civility and respect for others. His secretary has said she hasn’t seen him mad even once in the nine years she has worked for him. The one time I met Buffett at a meeting in New York City, he patiently waited around to speak with everyone who wanted to meet him. He was attentive and focused on them, never projecting the slightest hint of self-importance.

He is confident, yet humble. Buffett knows he’s very good at what he does, and he projects an easy confidence rather than superiority or arrogance.He credits his managers for his success, remains plain spoken, works in a modest office, lives in a modest house, and proclaims thrift as a virtue (the vanity plate on his former car read “Thrifty”).

Compare Warren Buffett to Donald Trump, for example. It’s hard to imagine Buffett prominently displaying his name all over everything he owns or relishing in telling someone “you’re fired.” Instead of everything being all about him, Buffett insists it’s all about others. He appears to be guided by ‘The Golden Rule’ rather than Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Given the way Buffett treats people, it should come as no surprise that some private company owners report turning down more lucrative offers to join the Berkshire family. It is telling, that no manager who sold a company to Buffett has ever left for a competitor, and several continue to work well into their eighties. Put simply, “people want to work for him,” proclaimed another satisfied manager, Rich Santulli, head of NetJets.

Buffett promotes communication by being approachable and candid. At the annual meeting he hosts in Omaha for Berkshire shareholders, Buffett and Munger sit on a platform, listening to shareholder opinions and answering questions for hours on end. In dealing with his managers he follows the data they provide him in periodic reports and makes himself available if they want to talk. Buffett writes and speaks with candour, even pointing out mistakes he made and what he learned from them.

Warren Buffett’s ways make the managers of Berkshire Hathaway feel proud to be affiliated with the company, feel valued as human beings and feel they can communicate openly and honestly with Buffett. These feelings (or emotions) make people want to give their best effort in their work and make them more energetic, optimistic, trusting and co-operative.

Warren Buffett’s behaviour reflects common sense and yet, studies have shown that such behaviour is uncommon in practice among those with power in organisations. They are yet another reason why Buffett deserves to be called the Oracle of Omaha.

(Michael Lee Stallard is president of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and development organisation.)

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Warren Buffett: Lost His Touch (Again)?

Various people are wandering about saying that investor Warren Buffett has lost his touch. The gist of the argument: A combination of style drift (derivatives?!), ill-timed investments, and his "long term" refrain on declining positions demonstrate that he is, at the very least, having a hard time right now, if not outright floundering, at least a little.

Doug Kass argues this in a morning post over at RealMoney. As he would concede, this isn't the first time Warren has been deemed ready for pasture, what with similar arguments having been made in 1999, which turned out to be premature.

Is this time different? Kass argues "Yes", with the Buffett no longer having as long a long term as he once did, and with his style drift particularly worrisome in the face of some ill-timed investments.

I’ve been arguing for some time that Buffett is feeling more pain than most people realize, but I’m also not convinced he has lost his touch either. Maybe it's time to open this conversation up. Other thoughts?

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Keep watch for Buffett's stock holding disclosure (BRK-A)

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRKA) was big news last week as third quarter profit fell 77% on difficulties in the insurance business. In the wake of the news, Berkshire shares have hit 52-week lows (technically the 52-week lows is $3,000 per share, but this was a strange intraday trading anomaly that was soon corrected).

For those investors that do not hold Berkshire shares but still maintain a fascination with the “Oracle of Omaha,” Warren Buffett, the real news was not last week but will be coming at the end of this one when his end of quarter stock holdings are made public. Thanks to the size of Berkshire’s investments, the company is required to file a 13F with the SEC detailing its security holdings. Buffett made headlines with his stock cheerleading in the New York Times in October, but it will be time to see if he put his money where his mouth was.

Granted, Buffett did make big moves into General Electric (NYSE: GE) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), but the terms were so distorted – preferred shares with favorable dividends and the option to buy more shares later at attractive pricing – that it was meaningless commentary on the market for the average investor.

It never hurts to pay attention to a man that has generated 25% annual returns for 30 years.

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