“I'm a bull on Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, Financial)(BRK.B, Financial). There may be some considerable waiting, but I think there are some good days ahead.”
“Personally, I think Berkshire will be a lot bigger and stronger than it is. Whether the stock will be a good investment from today's price is another question. The one thing we've always guaranteed is that the future will be a lot worse than the past.”
“We stumbled into this two-person format. It would not work if it was just one person. You could have the wittiest, wisest person on earth up there, and people would find it very tiresome. It takes a little interplay of personalities to handle the extreme length of the festival.”
“I don't think it would work well to have a half-and-half management. We don't need an operating guy; we have people running the businesses, and the main thing is not to destroy or damage the spirit they have.”
“Berkshire has the lowest turnover of any major company in the U.S. The Walton family owns more of Walmart than Buffett owns of Berkshire, so it isn't because of large holdings. It's because we have a really unusual shareholder body that thinks of itself as owners and not holders of little pieces of paper.”
“The future returns of Berkshire and Wesco won't be as good in the future as they have been in the past. The only difference is that we'll tell you. Today, it seems to be regarded as the duty of CEOs to make the stock go up. This leads to all sorts of foolish behavior. We want to tell it like it is. I'm happy having 90% of my net worth in Berkshire stock. We're going to try to compound it at a reasonable rate without taking unreasonable risk or using leverage. If we can't do this, then that's just too damn bad. The businesses that Berkshire has acquired will return 13% pre-tax on what we paid for them, maybe more. With a cost of capital of 3% — generated via other peoples' money in the form of float — that's a hell of a business. That's the reason Berkshire shareholders needn't totally despair. Berkshire is not as good as it was in terms of percentage compounding [going forward], but it's still a hell of a business.”
Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) and Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio) Share Their 100-year Vision for Berkshire:
