No. of Recommendations: 18
“ Very happy to have Berkshire as my largest holdings by a mile.
Even apart from the solid financial returns, it’s a great joy for all of us to be part of the positive unselfish culture which has filtered out from Berkshire into our own little lives and careers.”
Excellent thread! I echo EVBigMacMeal’s comments above. I am continuing to hold onto all shares both in IRA and brokerage accounts. Warren & Charlie have given tremendous & thought into succession & strengthening BRK for decades. They nourished the amazing culture and chose a wise & passionate Board who all have Real skin in the game. They honored Rule #1, analyzing/dealing with all types of risks. They have consistently thought and acted on behalf of shareholder partners, avoiding bureaucracy, loosened up the buyback criteria & set up Berkshire for several decades of ongoing success. I’m biased but we do have the best and most well informed, passionate and loyal owners. The Trust in Berkshire has been deserved, and partners have been consistently rewarded, regardless of their holding time.
No doubt, huge allocation decisions will be quite challenging but I trust Greg & Ajit will do an excellent job with their very gifted minds, experience & skill sets. They’ve had the greatest exemplars at the top, and they have seen it all flourish. Special opportunities to acquire businesses will occur less frequently, but I do see approval for even more liberal buybacks as cash keeps pouring in. The markets have much more option, momentum & algo trading and too many casino-like speculators, so further opportunities to add wonderful companies at fair prices will present themselves, but we may need the Patience of Charlie at times going forward.
If and when a dividend is created (after Warren), I bet it would be more of a time to time “special” dividend initially rather than an ongoing quarterly dividend.
Whether we see earnings of Jim’s projected long-term inflation + 6-8% or a bit less, I do think Berkshire will deliver quite satisfactory long-term returns and will reward its partners.
Greg has proven himself for a quarter of a century at BRK and seems to have a superb broad vision of the entire conglomerate and surprising depth of knowledge of a good many of the specific non-insurance businesses. Ajit is Ajit, simply the Best. It would be excellent if we could add greater Supercat and reinsurance coverage or a Chubb or Markel, given the right price.
Appreciate all of the various perspectives. Will be fascinating and fun to watch it all unfold.
