No. of Recommendations: 16
Article started off with a quote from Munger.
https://www.hoskingpartners.com/articles/taking-ti... 'If you can't beat them, join them' can be a pragmatic response when the odds are not right, and Berkshire Hathaway is currently a top 20 position in the Hosking Partners portfolio. Investing alongside the management who control the company allows us to retain long-term exposure to assets such as BNSF, and rather than paying for this advantage we get to invest with minimal drag from fees and management overhead. We also benefit from the liquidity of listed shares.
Incidentally, since its acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway, BNSF has stood out with a different strategy from the other Class I railroads, all of which are listed. While the rest of the industry has pursued the practice of 'precision scheduled railroading' (PSR), based on pursuing operational efficiencies to generate a higher return from their assets even if at the expense of customer experience, BNSF with the support of its Berkshire Hathaway parent has instead accepted greater redundancy in its operations, for example in terms of track length and yard numbers, in order to be able to accommodate longer-term growth. The jury is out on which approach is the right one, but the consensus among the sell-side analyst community is that PSR is the only way, and much of its commentary consists simply of breathless reporting of the latest job moves by PSR's leading exponents from one railroad to another. BNSF is sheltered from such short-term distraction by its parent Berkshire Hathaway. The fable of the hare and the tortoise may be an appropriate metaphor as we wait to see which strategy prevails.
