The Warren Buffett Business Factors

(Selected articles from the Letters of Warren E. Buffett

to the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.)

Selected and Arranged by

Cesar Labitan, Jr. MD

clabitan@juno.com

MBAE student

Purdue University – Calumet

School of Management

Hammond, Indiana

2002

Table of Contents

Introduction..................... 4

Goals....................................... 5

Attitude and Temperament........................................ 6

Friends and Wonderful Businesses..................... 6

Honesty.................................. 7

Charlie Munger................ 7

Ben Graham......................... 8

Dave Dodd............................. 9

Lorimer Davidson........... 9

Rose Blumkin................... 10

The Wonderful Business........................................... 11

Shutdown of Textile Business............................. 12

Capital Turnover and Allocation................... 14

A Managerial Story.... 15

Dividend Policy.............. 16

Intelligent Investing. 19

Mr. Market......................... 25

Risk......................................... 26

Return on Equity Capital......................................... 28

Finance................................. 28

Book Value and Intrinsic Value.......................... 29

Intrinsic Value and Capital Allocation...... 30

Animal Spirits and Ego.............................................. 31

Greed..................................... 31

Accounting....................... 32

Taxation and Inflation............................................ 33

"Look-Through" Earnings....................................... 34

Non-Insurance Operations..................................... 35

Corporate Governance............................................ 38

Equity Value-Added...... 40

Efficient Market Theory........................................... 43

EBITDA or EBDIT............... 44

Capital Structure....... 45

Junk Bonds........................ 46

Some Mistakes................. 47

The Institutional Imperative................................ 48

Arbitrage........................... 49

Insurance Operations................................................ 52

Measuring Insurance Performance.................. 55

Cost and Return on Capital.................................. 56

The Manager-Owner Relationship:................... 57

Bonds, Valuation Approach.................................. 58

Convertible Preferreds and Structured Investment......................... 61

Zero-Coupon Securities............................................ 62

Investment Bankers... 66

Advantage in Purchasing........................................ 66

Insurance Operations Advantage..................... 66

General Re......................... 67

The Borsheim Advantage.......................................... 68

Super-cats Advantage............................................... 68

Coca-Cola and Gillette Advantages.............. 69

Capital Strength Advantage............................... 69

Acquisitions..................... 70

GEICO...................................... 72

Marketing of GEICO..... 72

Tech Companies.............. 74

Understandable Business....................................... 75

Sustainable Competitive Advantage............... 76

Trustworthy First-class Management........ 77

Bargain Price.................. 78

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