Charlie Munger's opinion of Benjamin Graham's deep Value Investing

Why Charlie Munger Hates Value Investing

When Charlie Munger ( Trades , Portfolio ) came to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) in the late '60s, Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio) was still running the business and investing how his teacher, Benjamin Graham, had taught him to - by buying a selection of cigar butt type companies and holding for many years.

Unlike Buffett, who had essentially grown up under Graham's wing, Munger had no such attachment to the godfather of value investing. Instead, Munger seems actually to dislike deep value investing:

"I don't love Ben Graham and his ideas the way Warren does. You have to understand, to Warren - who discovered him at such a young age and then went to work for him - Ben Graham's insights changed his whole life, and he spent much of his early years worshiping the master at close range. But I have to say, Ben Graham had a lot to learn as an investor. 

"I think Ben Graham wasn't nearly as good an investor as Warren Buffett is or even as good as I am. Buying those cheap, cigar-butt stocks was a snare and a delusion, and it would never work with the kinds of sums of money we have. You can't do it with billions of dollars or even many millions of dollars. But he was a very good writer and a very good teacher and a brilliant man, one of the only intellectuals - probably the only intellectual - in the investing business at the time." - Charlie Munger, The Wall Street Journal September 2014

When he arrived at Berkshire, Munger actively tried to push Buffett away from deep value toward quality at a reasonable price, which he did with much success.

All you need to do is to look at Buffett's acquisition of See's Candies in the late 1960s to realize that without Munger's quality over value influence on Buffett, Berkshire wouldn't have become the American corporate giant it is today.



A love of high quality

Munger always had a fascination with buying high-quality businesses, and in the early days, his style differed greatly from that of Buffett. He always placed a premium on the intangible assets of a company, those assets that had no financial value to other companies but were worth billions in the right hands.

"Munger bought cigar butts, did arbitrage, even acquired small businesses. He said to Ed Anderson, 'I just like the great businesses.' He told Anderson to write up companies like Allergan ( AGN ), the contact-lens-solution maker. Anderson misunderstood and wrote a Grahamian report emphasizing the company's balance sheet. Munger dressed him down for it; he wanted to hear about the intangible qualities of Allergan: the strength of its management, the durability of its brand, what it would take for someone else to compete with it. 

" Munger had invested in a Caterpillar ( CAT ) tractor dealership and saw how it gobbled up money, which sat in the yard in the form of slow-selling tractors. Munger wanted to own a business that did not require continual investment and spat out more cash than it consumed. Munger was always asking people, 'What's the best business you've ever heard of?'" - "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" by Alice Schroeder

Munger understood that it's these businesses where big money is made as the high returns on capital, and a nonexistent need for capital investment ensures shareholders are well rewarded over the long term.

For example, in his 1995 speech, "A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates to Investment Management & Business," Munger said:

"We've really made the money out of high-quality businesses. In some cases, we bought the whole business. And in some cases, we just bought a big block of stock. But when you analyze what happened, the big money's been made in the high quality businesses. And most of the other people who've made a lot of money have done so in high quality businesses. 

" Over the long term, it's hard for a stock to earn a much better return than the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns 6% on capital over 40 years and you hold it for that 40 years, you're not going to make much different than a 6% return -even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns 18% on capital over 20 or 30 years, even if you pay an expensive-looking price, you'll end up with a fine result. 

" So the trick is getting into better businesses. And that involves all of these advantages of scale that you could consider momentum effects."

Buffett added some meat to this statement at the 2003 Berkshire Hathaway meeting:

"The ideal business is one that generates very high returns on capital and can invest that capital back into the business at equally high rates. Imagine a $100 million business that earns 20% in one year, reinvests the $20 million profit and in the next year earns 20% of $120 million and so forth. But there are very very few businesses like this. Coke ( KO ) has high returns on capital, but incremental capital doesn't earn anything like its current returns. We love businesses that can earn high rates on even more capital than it earns. Most of our businesses generate lots of money but can't generate high returns on incremental capital - for example, See's and Buffalo News. We look for them [areas to wisely reinvest capital], but they don't exist."

These quotes do a great job of summing up Munger and Buffett's investment strategy. Even though there are thousands of pages of investment commentary from both of these billionaires, their investment style can be summed up with the simple description of quality at a reasonable price, and the above quotes show exactly why they've both decided this style is best.

By: GuruFocus

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stockmarketnewsstoryprint.aspx?storyid=why-charlie-munger-hates-value-investing-cm774232

Good quality company at fair price

COMPANY RD

Quarter	High Pr	Low Pr	ttm-eps	High PE	Low PE
1	16.90	16.18	111.27	15.19	14.54
4	16.20	15.42	110.48	14.66	13.96
3	15.96	15.02	107.18	14.89	14.01
2	14.46	14.18	104.76	13.80	13.54
1	13.80	13.50	102.70	13.44	13.15
4	14.04	13.54	99.47	14.11	13.61
3	12.78	12.30	98.59	12.96	12.48
2	13.46	12.52	95.28	14.13	13.14
1	13.26	12.98	91.10	14.56	14.25
4	13.54	12.84	87.17	15.53	14.73
3	12.86	12.50	82.66	15.56	15.12
2	12.22	11.92	78.83	15.50	15.12
1	12.04	11.26	75.57	15.93	14.90
4	12.00	10.94	73.31	16.37	14.92
3	11.02	10.62	73.15	15.06	14.52
2	10.30	9.84	73.00	14.11	13.48
1	8.80	8.35	72.99	12.06	11.44
4	9.25	8.55	76.94	12.02	11.11
3	8.80	8.15	74.78	11.77	10.90
2	10.30	9.80	72.62	14.18	13.49
1	12.00	11.30	70.55	17.01	16.02
4	11.80	10.30	63.35	18.63	16.26
3	11.40	10.40	59.38	19.20	17.51
2	11.10	9.90	56.21	19.75	17.61
1	10.20	9.65	54.27	18.79	17.78
4	9.55	8.80	51.79	18.44	16.99
3	8.90	7.60	50.32	17.69	15.10
2	6.90	6.60	47.88	14.41	13.78
1	6.75	6.25	45.39	14.87	13.77
4	6.70	6.45	54.88	12.21	11.75
3	6.75	6.35	63.93	10.56	9.93
2	6.90	6.70	73.23	9.42	9.15
1	13.80	12.90	77.80	17.74	16.58
4	15.50	15.00	64.23	24.13	23.35
3	14.70	13.80	50.49	29.11	27.33
2	10.40	9.92	37.23	27.93	26.64
1	9.84	8.80	29.10	33.81	30.24

ttm-EPS Growth Rates

1yrCAGR	2yrCAGR	5YrCAGR	7YrCAGR	10YrCAGR
8.3%	10.5%	8.9%	13.7%	14.4%

	HPE	LPE
Avg 5 Yrs	14.29	13.62
Avg 10 Yrs	16.47	15.47

	LDY%	HDY%
Avg 5 Yrs	4.63%	4.87%
Avg 10 Yrs	6.51%	6.91%

Quarter	Q1 eps	Q2 eps	Q3 eps	Q4  eps	FYE eps
31-Dec-13	27.65	0.00	0.00	0.00	27.65
31/12/2012	26.86	27.20	28.08	28.34	110.48
31-Dec-11	23.63	25.14	25.66	25.04	99.47
31-Dec-10	19.70	20.96	22.35	24.16	87.17
31/12/2009	17.44	17.70	18.52	19.65	73.31
31-Dec-08	21.39	17.69	18.37	19.49	76.94
31-Dec-07	14.19	15.62	16.21	17.33	63.35
31-Dec-06	11.71	13.68	13.04	13.36	51.79
31-Dec-05	21.20	11.19	10.60	11.89	54.88
31-Dec-04	7.63	15.76	19.90	20.94	64.23
				Sum	709.27
				DPO	89.7%

Quarter	FYE eps	Div	Ret Earn	DPO%
31-Dec-13	27.65	0.00	27.65	0.0%
31/12/2012	110.48	50.00	60.48	45.3%
31-Dec-11	99.47	48.00	51.47	48.3%
31-Dec-10	87.17	58.00	29.17	66.5%
31/12/2009	73.31	55.00	18.31	75.0%
31-Dec-08	76.94	55.00	21.94	71.5%
31-Dec-07	63.35	75.00	-11.65	118.4%
31-Dec-06	51.79	60.00	-8.21	115.9%
31-Dec-05	54.88	55.00	-0.12	100.2%
31-Dec-04	64.23	180.00	-115.77	280.2%
Sum	709.27	636.00	73.27
DPO	89.7%
	FYE eps	Div
1YrCAGR	11.1%	4.2%
2YrCAGR	12.6%	-7.2%
3Yr CAGR	14.6%	-3.1%
5YrCAGR	11.8%	-7.8%
8YrCAGR	7.0%	-14.8%

Qtr No	ROE
1	22%
4	22%
3	22%
2	22%
1	23%
4	23%
3	25%
2	24%
1	25%
4	23%
3	24%
2	23%
1	23%
4	23%
3	25%
2	24%
1	26%
4	27%
3	27%
2	26%
1	27%
4	23%
3	23%
2	21%
1	21%
4	19%
3	20%
2	19%
1	18%
4	21%
3	29%
2	33%
1	18%
4	13%
3	10%
2	9%
1	14%

Summary:
At today's price, this company is trading at:

P/E of 15.2 x

DY of 2.96%

Its EPS GR is around 9% to 10% for recent years.

It distributes dividends yearly, though in recent years, it has retained more of its earnings in the company.  

However, given its high ROE of 22% or so, this greater portion of retained earnings is advantageous and beneficial to the long-term investors.

Though its share price has risen over the last 2 years in this bull market, its P/E has only increased minimally or modestly.  

AEON: What is its fair value?

AEON
		31/12/12	31/12/11	31/12/10	31/12/09	31/12/08
EPS (sen)		60.6	55.7	47.0	38.0	34.4
Gross DPS (sen)		24.0	19.0	16.0	12.0	12.0
NAV per shr ($)		4.19	3.67	3.21	2.80	2.51
ROE %		14.49	15.17	14.67	13.57	13.67
P/E ratio		23.30	13.00	12.96	13.04	12.22
Shr Pr ($) (31/12)		14.12	7.24	6.09	4.96	4.20

On 29.5.2013, Aeon closes at $17.96 per share.

Its latest ttm-EPS was 64.46 sen.

This gives a P/E ratio of 27.86 .

EPS Growth Rate last 5 years was 15.5%

Assuming, future EPS GR is also 15.5%, PEG = 27.86 / 15.5 = 1.8

Its gross DPS in 2012 was 24 sen and at present share price, its DY is 1.34%.

[Historical DY ranges from a high of 2.63% to a low of 1.65%.

Historical PE was < 15. ]

At present price of $17.96 per share, EPS GR of 15%, and P/E ratio of 27.86,

1.  What is the Upside Returns / Downside Risk of this investment at the present price?

2.  What is the Potential Returns of this investment at the present price?

.

Stocks with Low PE Multiples Outperform those with High Multiples. Investors are warned repeatedly about the dangers of very high-multiple stocks that are currently fashionable.

In 1934, Dodd and Graham argued that "value" wins over time for investors.  To find value, investors should look for stocks with low PE ratios and low prices relative to book value, P/BV.  Value is based on current realities rather than on projections of future growth.  This is consistent with the views that investors tend to be overconfident in their ability to project high earnings growth and thus overpay for "growth" stocks.

Stocks with Low PE Multiples Outperform those with High Multiples
One approach of stock selection is to look for companies with good growth prospects that have yet to be discovered by the stock market and thus are selling at relatively low earnings multiple.  This approach is often described as GARP, growth at a reasonable price.  

Earnings growth is so hard to forecast, it's far better to be in low-multiple stocks; if growth does materialize, both the earnings and the earnings multiple will likely increase, giving the investor a double benefit.  Buying a high-multiple stock whose earnings growth fails to materialize subjects investors to a double whammy.  Both the earnings and the multiple can fall.  Therefore investors are warned repeatedly about the dangers of very high-multiple stocks that are currently fashionable.

There is some evidence that a portfolio of stocks with relatively low earnings multiples (as well as low multiples of cash flow and of sales) produces above-average rates of return even after adjustment for risk.  This strategy was tested and had been confirmed by several researchers who showed that as the PE of a group of stocks increased, the return decreased.

This "PE effect," however, appears to vary over time - it is not dependable over every investment period.  And even if it does persist on average over a long period of time, one can never be sure whether the excess returns are due to increased risk or to market abnormalities.

And low PEs are often justified.  Companies on the verge of some financial disaster will frequently sell at very low multiples of reported earnings.  The low multiples might reflect not value but a profound concern about the viability of the companies.  

Tesco: Consistent Earnings Growth at Attractive Price

This is an old article on Tesco.
Click here to read the full article:
http://marclangefeldsinvestmentideas.blogspot.com/2009/09/tesco-consistent-earnings-growth-at.html


SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2009

Tesco: Consistent Earnings Growth at Attractive Price
Tesco (ADR stock ticker: TSCDY) should be considered for potential purchase based on its leading position in the UK retail market, its expansion opportunities in international markets, its ability to improve operating margins and its attractive dividend yield of 3.6%.

Tesco’s ADR stock price target is $21.30 based on applying a 13x multiple to its earnings next year. Tesco deserves to trade at a premium multiple to its high single digits / low teens long-term earnings growth rate based on its consistent earnings execution, its focus on maximizing shareholder value, its best in class EBIT margins and its strong return on equity.

Petdag - a GARP investment

At the closing price of 9.90, PetDag was trading at ttm-PE of 13.06 and DY of 4.55%

Historical Data of last 5 Years
EPS GR 24.9%
DPS GR 38%
DY range 4.7% to 3.4%
PE range 9.4 to 12.9

At the present price, it is trading at
PE closer to the upper part of its historical PE range
DY closer to the upper part of its historical DY range



Recent Stock Performance:

1 Week	5.8%		13 Weeks	10.5%
4 Weeks	13.6%		52 Weeks	20.2%

Will the EPS of PetDag for this year be higher than the previous year?

Growth At Reasonable Price (GARP) at Work

Let's delve into some of the numbers that GARPers look for in potential companies.

The PEG Ratio
The PEG ratio may very well be the most important metric to any GARP investor, as it basically gauges the balance between a stock's growth potential and its value.

GARP investors require a PEG no higher than 1 and, in most cases, closer to 0.5. A PEG less then 1 implies that, at present, the stock's price is lower than it should be given its earnings growth. To the GARP investor, a PEG below 1 indicates that a stock is undervalued and warrants further analysis.

PEG at Work
Say the TSJ Sports Conglomerate, a fictional company, is trading at 19 times earnings (P/E = 19) and has earnings growing at 30%. From this you can calculate that the TSJ has a PEG of 0.63 (19/30=0.63), which is pretty good by GARP standards.

Now let's compare the TSJ to Cory's Tequila Co. (CTC), which is trading at 11 times earnings (P/E = 11) and has earnings growth of 20%. Its PEG equals 0.55. The GARPer's interest would be aroused by the TSJ, but Cory's Tequila Co. would look even more attractive. Although it has slower growth compared to TSJ, CTC currently has a better price given the growth potential it offers. In other words, CTC has slower growth, but TSJ's faster growth is more overpriced. As you can see, the GARP investor seeks solid growth, but also demands that this growth be valued at a reasonable price. Hey, the name does make sense!



GARP at Work
Because a GARP strategy employs principles from both value and growth investing, the returns that GARPers see during certain market phases are often different than the returns strictly value or growth investors would see at those times. For instance, in a raging bull market the returns from a growth strategy are often unbeatable: in the Internet boom of the mid- to late-1990s, for example, neither the value investor nor the GARPer could compete. However, when the market does turn, a GARPer is less likely to suffer than the growth investor.(see charts below)

Therefore, the GARP strategy not only fuses growth and value stock-picking criteria, but also experiences a combination of their types of returns : a value investor will do better in bearish conditions; a growth investor will do exceptionally well in a raging bull market; and a GARPer will be rewarded with more consistent and predictable returns.

Conclusion
GARP might sound like the perfect strategy, but combining growth and value investing isn't as easy as it sounds. If you don't master both strategies, you could find yourself buying mediocre rather than good GARP stocks. But as many great investors such as Peter Lynch himself have proven, the returns are definitely worth the time it takes to learn the GARP techniques.


http://www.disnat.com/en/knowledge/stock_selection/stock_selection5.asp











What Is GARP?
The GARP strategy is a combination of both value and growth investing: it looks for companies that are somewhat undervalued and have solid sustainable growth potential. The criteria which GARPers look for in a company fall right in between those sought by the value and growth investors. Above is a diagram illustrating how the GARP-preferred levels of price and growth compare to the levels sought by value and growth investors:

Importance of Earnings Growth

Learning and Understanding the Evolution of Warren Buffett

The Evolution of Warren Buffett

It will be difficult for Buffett to continue to beat the market, assuming that he can do so. There are basically three ways for him to try.

• The first is to substitute faster-growing foreign stocks for large cap U.S. stocks. That is, he may try to beat Exxon Mobil (XOM) using the stocks of PetroChina (PTR) (owned in the past), or Petrobras of Brazil, to play the emerging markets theme.
• The second way to try to beat the market is to try to time purchases near lows or obtain special terms, as Berkshire did with its large stakes in General Electric and Goldman Sachs (GS).
• The third way is to avoid stocks of clearly dying "leading" companies such as International Paper (IP), General Motors, and Eastman Kodak (EK), a quasi-index strategy that, if successful, would still lead to modest outperformance.

All in all, Buffett has come a long way from his early days.

Further Comments:  

1. The first and second strategies are termed OFFENSIVE STRATEGIES to improve the return of the portfolio.  
2. The third strategy is a DEFENSIVE STRATEGY to reduce harm to the return of the portfolio.

--------

1. Imitating Ben Graham: Buffett's early investments were clearly in the Graham and Dodd mold.


The first major one, in 1957, was National Fire American Insurance, operated by the Ahmanson brothers (the older, H.F., also gave his name to a savings and loan). The brothers tried to buy in the stock for $50 a share (just above its annual earnings), but Buffett sent an agent all over to Nebraska with a counteroffer of $100 a share. Even at this higher price, he just about doubled his money.


In 1958, Buffett put 20% of the partners' money in Commonwealth Bank of Union City, at a price of $50 a share, because he estimated its stock value at $125 a share, and the company was growing at 10% a year. This was a more than adequate (60%) "margin of safety." If the gap between price and value closed in 10 years, he would realize some $325, or a return of about 20% annualized. But he sold a year later at $80 a share, earning 60% in a year, while the ten-year return had fallen to "only" an annual 16%.


In 1959, he placed 35% of the partners' money in Sanborn Map, a company that produced detailed city maps of buildings, whose users were insurance companies, fire stations, and the like. This had been a prosperous business in the 1930s and 1940s, before a cheaper substitute rendered it unprofitable in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the stock had fallen from $110 a share to $45 a share in 20 years, even though the company had built up an investment portfolio worth $65 a share during that time using excess cash. In Ben Graham style, Buffett's partners and two allies obtained 46% of the stock and forced management to distribute most of the portfolio to shareholders, at a 50%-ish (pre-tax) gain to the investors who elected this option.


Going into the 1960s, Buffett continued to buy companies at a discount to asset value Graham style. These included Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile producer with per-share working capital approximating its $15 share price, Dempster Mills, and Diversified Retailing. Buffett bought all of these companies with the expectation of getting the underlying businesses for "free." This was true only for Dempster, a badly-managed company that was turned around in less than three years for triple the investment. In the case of Berkshire, at least, even "free" was too much to expect.


But Buffett eventually used Berkshire's cash flow to acquire Diversified, and then redeployed the two companies' cash elsewhere. What's more, when he distributed partnership assets pro rata in 1970, he had effectively changed the form of his investment vehicle from a partnership (where capital gains were taxed every year), to a corporation (where gains were taxed only when realized).


There was one investment during this period that signalled Buffett's eventual departure from the Graham style. That was the purchase of the stock of American Express, whose main business was credit cards, but whose stock suffered when the firm's warehousing operation vouched for the value of "salad oil" deposited by a crook. This man,Tino deAngelis, borrowed (and lost) money on the strength of phony collateral, leaving Amex holding the bag. The stock took a hit when Amex paid out $60 million, its entire net worth, to settle the resulting claims. But Buffett realized that he was really getting the credit card business at a discount. Late in the 1960s, he sold his Amex stock for between three to five times his acquisition cost, three to five years after he had bought it.

Further comments:

1. 
   
   Investment analysis during the late 19th century and the early part of the 20th century was focused primarily on determining a company's solvency and earning power for the purposes of bond analysis.  
2. 
   
   Benjamin Graham had adapted early bond analysis techniques to common stocks analysis. 
3. 
   
   
   
   

   But Graham never made the distinction between a company that held a long-term competitive advantage over its competitors and one  that didn't.  
4. 
   
   
   
   

   He was only interested in whether or not the company had sufficient earning power to get it out of the economic trouble that had sent its stock price spiraling downward.  
5. 
   
   
   
   

   He wasn't interested in owning a position in a company for 10 or 20 years.  
6. 
   
   
   
   

   If it didn't move after 2 years, he was out of it.  
7. 
   
   
   
   

   It's not like Graham missed the boat; he just didn't get on the one that would have made him, like Warren, the richest man in the world.

--------

2. Transition to a "GARP" Style: Warren Buffett then evolved into what we would call a "GARP" (growth at a reasonable price) investor, albeit one with a strong value bent.


This transition occurred during the early years of his "new" (post Buffett partnership) incarnation, after he had hooked up with Charlie Munger, who believed that it was better to buy a great company at a good price, rather than a good company at a great price..


(a) What happened in the early 1970s was that certifiable growth companies got not only into value, but deep value territory (great companies at great prices).


One of them was Washington Post That company had publishing and broadcasting assets worth perhaps $400 million in 1970, but which sold in the market for $80-$100 million. Buffett bought some 12% of the company, which not only closed the gap between market value and asset value, but also grew earnings per share in excess of 15% over the next decade.


GEICO, a low cost insurer, had represented one of Buffett's first investments as a boy. Started with $100,000 in seed capital in 1936, it was worth about $3 million when Ben Graham bought a controlling stake in 1948. From there, it advanced in spectacular fashion to a peak of over $500 million, over 100 times, in two and half decades, before falling onto hard times in the early 1970s.


By 1976, it was near bankruptcy when Buffett had Salomon Brothers organize a rescue via a $76 million capital infusion. Berkshire provided $19 million of it, and basically co-underwrote the convertible preferred offering with Salomon. Adding this to an earlier $4 million investment in common gave Buffett a 33% stake in a company that would grow per-share earnings at about 15% a year over the next two decades.


Other, less celebrated, long term holdings from the period include Affiliated Publications, the Interpublic Group (IPG), Media General, and Ogilvy and Mather.




(b) Buffett also experimented with cheaply priced leaders of their respective industries:


Safeco for insurance, General Foods (GIS) in food, and the former Exxon in energy. There was a group of inflation hedges in the form of Alcoa (AA), Cleveland Cliffs Iron (CLFQM.PK), GATX, Handy and Harman, and later Reyolds Aluminum. Finally, there were arbitrage operations in Arcata Corporation and Beatrice Foods.


Buffett also dabbled in larger media companies such as ABC (DIS), Capital Cities, and Time Inc (TWX). He made a proposal to the management of the latter company that he take a large blocking position, to prevent a takeover, which Time rejected, to its later regret. (A takeover attempt by Paramount forced it into an ill-advised merger with Warner Communications.)


Both ABC and Capital Cities came back onto Buffett's radar screen when the chairman of the former retired, and the chairman of the latter, Buffett's good friend Tom Murphy, wanted to acquire the former, a move that had the blessing of the outgoing chairman. On its own, Capital Cities had no chance to acquire ABC, but an over $500 million investment from Berkshire provided the "equity" slice that made the leveraged deal possible. It also had the effect of making Berkshire a nearly 20% shareholder in the combined company, discouraging a takeover. At 16 times earnings, it was not a Graham investment, and had no margin of safety on the balance sheet.


But Tom Murphy reduced the combined companies' debt by over $1 billion (nearly half) within a year, while growing earnings at a mid-teens rate. (The stock grew at nearly 20% a year for a decade, because of multiple expansion, before the company was taken over by Disney.




(c) Buffett's next moves were among the most controversial of his career (and foreshadowed his recent purchases of General Electric and Goldman Sachs preferred).


Not finding any cheap common stocks around the run-up to Black Monday (1987), Buffett bought converitble preferred stocks in Champion International, Gillette, Salomon Brothers and US Airways (UAUA) issued specifically to him.


Champion was a mediocre investment and U.S. Air was a money-losing one. Salomon fell onto hard times and had to be personally rescued by Buffett. Gillette was a fundamentally strong company that paid out essentially all of its net worth in a special dividend to avoid a takeover (before Buffett's investment recapitalized it). In this regard, it was much like American Express (AXP) of the 1960s. Buffett returned to American Express in the mid 1990s with a similar $300 million investment in convertible preferred.




(d) During this time, Buffett completed his transformation as a GARP investment by buying Coke (KO).


With a mid-teens P/E ratio, this was not a classic Graham and Dodd investment, but the company was selling at "only" 1.25 times the market multiple, a ratio that expanded to 3 times in a decade, tripling the absolute multiple. Earnings more than tripled during this time, making Coke a huge winner for Berkshire.


In recent years, Buffett has added "international" to his repertoire, investing in Guinness (drinks) and Tesco (TSCDY.PK) (retail) of Britain, Posco (PKX), the South Korean steel company, PetroChina and the Brazilian real.

Further comments:

1. Warren, on the other hand, after starting his career with Graham, discovered the tremendous wealth-creating economics of a company that possessed a long-term competitive advantage over its competitors.  
2. Warren realized that the longer you held one of these fantastic businesses, the richer it made you.  
3. While Graham would have argued that these super businesses  were all overpriced, Warren realized that he didn't have to wait for the stock market to serve up a bargain price, that even if he paid a fair price, he could still get superrich off of those businesses.  
4. In the process of discovering the advantages of owning a business with a long-term competitive advantage, Warren developed a unique set of analytical tools to help identify these special kinds of businesses.  
5. Though rooted in the old school Grahamian language, his new way of looking at things enabled him to determine whether the company could survive its current problems.  
6. Warren's way also told him whether or not the company in question possessed a long-term competitive advantage that would make him superrich over the long run.  
7. By learning or copying Warren, you can make the quantum leap that Warren made by enabling you to go beyond the old school Grahamian valuation models and discover, as Warren did, the phenomenal long-term wealth-creating power of a company that possesses a durable competitive advantage over its competitors.  
8. In the process you'll free yourself from the costly manipulations of Wall Street and gain the opportunity to join the growing ranks of intelligent investors the world over who are becoming tremendously wealthy following in the footsteps of this legendary and masterful investor.

The Evolution of Warren Buffett

The Evolution of Warren Buffett

It will be difficult for Buffett to continue to beat the market, assuming that he can do so.  There are basically three ways for him to try.

• The first is to substitute faster-growing foreign stocks for large cap U.S. stocks. That is, he may try to beat Exxon Mobil (XOM) using the stocks of PetroChina (PTR) (owned in the past), or Petrobras of Brazil, to play the emerging markets theme.
• The second way to try to beat the market is to try to time purchases near lows or obtain special terms, as Berkshire did with its large stakes in General Electric and Goldman Sachs (GS).
• The third way is to avoid stocks of clearly dying "leading" companies such as International Paper (IP), General Motors, and Eastman Kodak (EK), a quasi-index strategy that, if successful, would still lead to modest outperformance. 

All in all, Buffett has come a long way from his early days.


1.  Imitating Ben Graham:  Buffett's early investments were clearly in the Graham and Dodd mold. 

• The first major one, in 1957, was National Fire American Insurance, operated by the Ahmanson brothers (the older, H.F., also gave his name to a savings and loan). The brothers tried to buy in the stock for $50 a share (just above its annual earnings), but Buffett sent an agent all over to Nebraska with a counteroffer of $100 a share. Even at this higher price, he just about doubled his money.
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• In 1958, Buffett put 20% of the partners' money in Commonwealth Bank of Union City, at a price of $50 a share, because he estimated its stock value at $125 a share, and the company was growing at 10% a year. This was a more than adequate (60%) "margin of safety." If the gap between price and value closed in 10 years, he would realize some $325, or a return of about 20% annualized. But he sold a year later at $80 a share, earning 60% in a year, while the ten-year return had fallen to "only" an annual 16%.
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• In 1959, he placed 35% of the partners' money in Sanborn Map, a company that produced detailed city maps of buildings, whose users were insurance companies, fire stations, and the like. This had been a prosperous business in the 1930s and 1940s, before a cheaper substitute rendered it unprofitable in the 1950s. Nevertheless, the stock had fallen from $110 a share to $45 a share in 20 years, even though the company had built up an investment portfolio worth $65 a share during that time using excess cash. In Ben Graham style, Buffett's partners and two allies obtained 46% of the stock and forced management to distribute most of the portfolio to shareholders, at a 50%-ish (pre-tax) gain to the investors who elected this option.
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• Going into the 1960s, Buffett continued to buy companies at a discount to asset value Graham style. These included Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile producer with per-share working capital approximating its $15 share price, Dempster Mills, and Diversified Retailing. Buffett bought all of these companies with the expectation of getting the underlying businesses for "free." This was true only for Dempster, a badly-managed company that was turned around in less than three years for triple the investment. In the case of Berkshire, at least, even "free" was too much to expect.
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• But Buffett eventually used Berkshire's cash flow to acquire Diversified, and then redeployed the two companies' cash elsewhere. What's more, when he distributed partnership assets pro rata in 1970, he had effectively changed the form of his investment vehicle from a partnership (where capital gains were taxed every year), to a corporation (where gains were taxed only when realized).
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• There was one investment during this period that signalled Buffett's eventual departure from the Graham style. That was the purchase of the stock of American Express, whose main business was credit cards, but whose stock suffered when the firm's warehousing operation vouched for the value of "salad oil" deposited by a crook. This man,Tino deAngelis, borrowed (and lost) money on the strength of phony collateral, leaving Amex holding the bag. The stock took a hit when Amex paid out $60 million, its entire net worth, to settle the resulting claims.  But Buffett realized that he was really getting the credit card business at a discount. Late in the 1960s, he sold his Amex stock for between three to five times his acquisition cost, three to five years after he had bought it.

2.  Transition to a "GARP" Style:  Warren Buffett then evolved into what we would call a "GARP" (growth at a reasonable price) investor, albeit one with a strong value bent. 

This transition occurred during the early years of his "new" (post Buffett partnership) incarnation, after he had hooked up with Charlie Munger, who believed that it was better to buy a great company at a good price, rather than a good company at a great price..

(a)  What happened in the early 1970s was that certifiable growth companies got not only into value, but deep value territory (great companies at great prices). 

• One of them was Washington Post That company had publishing and broadcasting assets worth perhaps $400 million in 1970, but which sold in the market for $80-$100 million. Buffett bought some 12% of the company, which not only closed the gap between market value and asset value, but also grew earnings per share in excess of 15% over the next decade.
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• GEICO, a low cost insurer, had represented one of Buffett's first investments as a boy. Started with $100,000 in seed capital in 1936, it was worth about $3 million when Ben Graham bought a controlling stake in 1948. From there, it advanced in spectacular fashion to a peak of over $500 million, over 100 times, in two and half decades, before falling onto hard times in the early 1970s.  
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• By 1976, it was near bankruptcy when Buffett had Salomon Brothers organize a rescue via a $76 million capital infusion. Berkshire provided $19 million of it, and basically co-underwrote the convertible preferred offering with Salomon. Adding this to an earlier $4 million investment in common gave Buffett a 33% stake in a company that would grow per-share earnings at about 15% a year over the next two decades.
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• Other, less celebrated, long term holdings from the period include Affiliated Publications, the Interpublic Group (IPG), Media General, and Ogilvy and Mather.

(b)  Buffett also experimented with cheaply priced leaders of their respective industries: 

• Safeco for insurance, General Foods (GIS) in food, and the former Exxon in energy. There was a group of inflation hedges in the form of Alcoa (AA), Cleveland Cliffs Iron (CLFQM.PK), GATX, Handy and Harman, and later Reyolds Aluminum. Finally, there were arbitrage operations in Arcata Corporation and Beatrice Foods.
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• Buffett also dabbled in larger media companies such as ABC (DIS), Capital Cities, and Time Inc (TWX). He made a proposal to the management of the latter company that he take a large blocking position, to prevent a takeover, which Time rejected, to its later regret. (A takeover attempt by Paramount forced it into an ill-advised merger with Warner Communications.)
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• Both ABC and Capital Cities came back onto Buffett's radar screen when the chairman of the former retired, and the chairman of the latter, Buffett's good friend Tom Murphy, wanted to acquire the former, a move that had the blessing of the outgoing chairman. On its own, Capital Cities had no chance to acquire ABC, but an over $500 million investment from Berkshire provided the "equity" slice that made the leveraged deal possible. It also had the effect of making Berkshire a nearly 20% shareholder in the combined company, discouraging a takeover. At 16 times earnings, it was not a Graham investment, and had no margin of safety on the balance sheet.
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• But Tom Murphy reduced the combined companies' debt by over $1 billion (nearly half) within a year, while growing earnings at a mid-teens rate. (The stock grew at nearly 20% a year for a decade, because of multiple expansion, before the company was taken over by Disney.

(c)  Buffett's next moves were among the most controversial of his career (and foreshadowed his recent purchases of General Electric and Goldman Sachs preferred). 

• Not finding any cheap common stocks around the run-up to Black Monday (1987), Buffett bought converitble preferred stocks in Champion International, Gillette, Salomon Brothers and US Airways (UAUA) issued specifically to him.
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• Champion was a mediocre investment and U.S. Air was a money-losing one. Salomon fell onto hard times and had to be personally rescued by Buffett. Gillette was a fundamentally strong company that paid out essentially all of its net worth in a special dividend to avoid a takeover (before Buffett's investment recapitalized it). In this regard, it was much like American Express (AXP) of the 1960s. Buffett returned to American Express in the mid 1990s with a similar $300 million investment in convertible preferred.

(d)  During this time, Buffett completed his transformation as a GARP investment by buying Coke (KO). 

• With a mid-teens P/E ratio, this was not a classic Graham and Dodd investment, but the company was selling at "only" 1.25 times the market multiple, a ratio that expanded to 3 times in a decade, tripling the absolute multiple. Earnings more than tripled during this time, making Coke a huge winner for Berkshire.
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• In recent years, Buffett has added "international" to his repertoire, investing in Guinness (drinks) and Tesco (TSCDY.PK) (retail) of Britain, Posco (PKX), the South Korean steel company, PetroChina and the Brazilian real.