No. of Recommendations: 11
Not sure if you're referring to the old BAM or the new BAM.
I was thinking in terms of the old BAM. It had several attributes that appealed to me from a business standpoint.
o First it met my basic requirements of shareholder oriented management, a long track record of proven performance, the size and strength to ride through severe market cycles, management having their own assets at risk, etc. Maybe not BRK quality but pretty damn good.
o They addressed a large and on-going role - a place for pensions and other institutions to put money to work. Maybe not as cheap source of capital as float, but even larger in terms of supply.
o They were truly international. BRK isn't - albeit trying.
o They were capable of doing turnaround projects - buy, fix, sell and repeat. Not a basic strength of BRK.
o Wide circle of competence.
In other words, a broader range of investment opportunities. And not as subject to key-man risk as BRK.
So, like others, looking for an attractive buy-and-hold investment mostly outside of BRK's major operations.
I would probably tell my heirs to somewhat try to reconstruct the old BAM, but with perhaps a greater weight on the new BAM segment. I like the toll-booth aspects including management fees.
XOM is a different story, not appropriate for today's discussion. But I don't think most people recognize how much the company has been transformed in the past six years. And they've basically successfully followed the game plan they laid out in detail in the early 2018 Analysts meeting. I wish BRK was paying more attention to it.
I'm not trying to start new discussions on BAM or XOM. Just intended as a comment of other types of investment I consider rather than looking for mini-BRK's. And I don't want many. I'm of the Munger school that you don't need but a few, carefully chosen, of them.
