WARREN BUFFETT’S LETTER – 1992

WB Letter 1992

Mr. Buffett has written that they own a collection of business which is exceptional and also a run by an exceptional manager which has resulted in the higher returns.

Nowadays I have experience that everyone is becoming a market expert and providing their view on the short-term direction of the market. For such people, Mr. Buffett has given a good quote –

WB 1992 01

The Salomon Interlude

In 1991, Salomon Brothers caught for bond trading scandal and Mr. Buffett has performed as a chairman of Salomon for the ten months to resolve a problem at Saloman. At Salomon, they have been submitting false bids in an attempt to purchase more Treasury bonds than permitted by one buyer during the period between December 1990 and May 1991.

Five authorities – the SEC, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice – had important concerns about Salomon.

Acquisitions

Many acquisition-hungry managers made an acquisition with the hope that they will transform business which will provide them with a good opportunity to earn. When a manager gets failed, they learn a lesson but shareholders pay fees for selecting them as an investment candidate. Mr. Buffett has accepted that during his earlier career, he also has made an acquisition but he able to achieve success due to cheapness into acquisitions and some of the acquisition got failed also. And due to such mistakes to get a failure, he revised his strategy to make an investment.

TATA Steel 01

TATA Steel 02

WB 1992 02

Berkshire has made an investment into the Central States Indemnity which is an insurance company provides an insurance to the credit-card holders who are unable themselves to pay because they have become disabled or unemployed.

H.H.Brown, a Subsidiary of a Berkshire has made an acquisition of Lowell Shoe Company which is into the manufacturing of the shoes for nurses, and other kinds of shoes as well.

Mr. Buffett has initial thought of purchase General Dynamics for the tendering stocks to the buyback and earns a small profit in short term. But Mr. Buffett began to study the company and he found that Bill Anders, CEO of the company has performed a decent job to run a business. Mr. Buffett has dropped the idea of buyback opportunity and decided to become a long-term investor of the company.

Investing strategy of Berkshire has been little change and also Mr. Buffett has made some compromise on the price to purchase a business’s due to market condition and their increased size.

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Now, how to know an attractive price? Mr. Buffett has explained that we look attractive price with the framework of value or a growth investor – what we consider to ourselves. He explained that growth is always a component of the calculation of the value of any company. He mentioned that people using value investing term everywhere with the paying higher price then calculated the value in the hope that someone pays higher to purchase an asset from them. But such activities do not consider as an investment, it is a speculation.

People consider value investing where attribute such as low Price – to – Earnings ratio, low Price to Book Value ratio or high dividend yield or combination from mentioned and not consider value investing where reverse attributes are available. Many a time, business growth also tell us little about the value but it is also true that often growth has a positive impact on the value. We have to analyze that whether a business can able to generate a good return on the incremental invested capital or business generating a low return on incremental capital. Former one provides the benefit of growth to the investors and latter one hurts to the investment.

Ex – Value Trap

Taken from Thoughts on Thoughts blog

MTNL

The company looks very cheap on the basis of the financial metrics, but if someone who does not have paid attention to the business of the company then—

MTNL Chart

An investor has lost his capital also. So, that in value investing also, we cannot escape from the future. (For detail article, Kindly visit – http://neerajmarathe.blogspot.in/2010/04/mtnl-value-trap.html)

Value Trap – One of the educational providing company which fall under the criteria of value investing

Jetking

The company is not able to generate good growth in sales and in the profitability but investment and cash have grown well. Also currently the company is available below cash + investment which fall under the criteria of the value investing. But what about the growth into the business or on the survival of the business. Will be cash & investment remain with the company in the future? Lower sales, higher expenses, lower profitability and for last 3 years the company has stopped paying a dividend. Should we consider such investment as value investing or value trap?

Ex – Growth at the low return on capital companies

The company which is generating a good sales growth but they is not able to generate a higher return on capital they employed then those companies require to take debt or dilute an equity (in-short they need external funding). Investors in such companies will face difficult to create wealth or sustain wealth.

High growth with low return

We can see that companies having a higher sales growth but cannot able to generate a higher return on capital then they require to bring external finance to fund the growth. The growth of such companies will extend for the long period but investors face difficult to create wealth.

High growth with low return chart

Ex – Growth at the higher return on capital companies

Reverse to above if company having a good growth with having a higher return on employed capital then company does not require to bring external financing (if they having a borrowing or a dilution of capital then the size of it is very small in proportion) to fund the growth of a company and also investors of such a company can create a good wealth.

High growth with high return

High growth with high return c 1

Ex – Higher growth but no value

If we just focus on the growth of the company and not on the quality of the growth then we need to lose our capital also.

High growth but no value

A company having good growth but does it have a quality of growth?

High growth but no value C 2

More dangerous balance-sheet quality after FY2010 –

High growth but no value 1

Every time does not value investing or growth investing provides a better investment opportunity but a rational combination of the both can be good investment opportunities.

Mr. Buffett has explained valuation matrix given by Mr. John Burr Williams which is determined by the cash inflows and outflows – discounted at an appropriate interest rate – that can be expected to occur during the remaining life of the asset. He has given matrix which similarly uses for bond and stocks. But bond involves fixed future cash inflow in-terms of coupon received by us and in equities such coupon is not fixed, we cannot say with surety about future cash inflow and outflow for business. Cash inflow and outflow into equities are highly dependence on the nature of a business, quality of management. For overcoming such problem Mr. Buffett uses two rules at Berkshire –

WB 1992 04

WB 1992 05

According to Mr. Buffett, new issue market is controlling by the stockholders and institution; also new issues come during favorable market conditions and we need to pay a higher multiple. Here, we are not going to get any bargain whereas in the secondary market, many a time, we get x value business at the 1/2x.

Warren Buffett’s Letters 1957 – 2012

WARREN BUFFETT’S LETTER – 1980 – 1981

I am really grateful to Riddhi for helping me with editing work.

WB Letter 1980

Mr.Buffett gave his opinion about the repurchase of outstanding shares of the company.

wb_1980_01

He had discussed the effect of inflation to his shareholders in a very well manner.

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Buffett focuses on businesses that can enhance the Return on Equity with the rising inflation and without the need of additional capital requirement.

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When there is a temporary trouble to the business; and if the managers have an ability to cure that temporary problem and the business itself can generate good cash; then

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Buffett mentions that we should focus on strong business so that it does not depend on the good management.

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WB Letter 1981

Mr.Buffett has given his view on maximizing economic benefits rather than accounting appearance. And also stated some of the mistakes which the management is making.

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Rather than buying companies which have the management with above-mentioned characteristics, he suggests buying a company which has the following characteristics.

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Few companies are able to enhance their margins though their sales which are not growing at a very high rate and are still sustaining their market share.

price_increases

fin_cab___hul

In India, there is an air cooler manufacturing company which grew well without major additional capital.

symphony_capex

In the above table; we can see that Sales and Net profit has grown by 30% and 48% CAGR respectively. And if we see cumulative capital expenditure made by the company; then it is just 10% of the cumulative net profit. The company has grown its sales and profitability without the requirement of major additional capital.

symphony_chart

Mr.Buffett gives a good logical perspective that when the company can earn higher Return on equity; then they should invest their earnings into the business itself. And if the company is unable to earn higher Return on equity; then they should distribute earnings to the owners so that the owners can deploy capital in a better way. But we should be aware of companies that are raising capital for the dividend payout.

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Warren Buffett’s Letters 1957 – 2012

 

WARREN BUFFETT’S LETTER – 1976 – 1979

I am really grateful to Riddhi for helping me with editing work.

WB Letter 1976

Performance of the company has shown significant improvement in the year 1976 and company has been able to achieve 17.30% returns on shareholders’ equity.

Textile operation

Return on sales and Return on capital employed of textile operations was inadequate due to sluggish industry condition. Performance of any company can be measured by looking at the return on sales and return on capital employed and whether the business has a temporary problem or not.

Insurance operation

In the year 1976, insurance underwriting business has shown good performance due to the increase in the premium rates.

WB Letter 1977

People measure higher earnings per share on the basis of the past record-breaking earnings but according to Mr.Buffett, if the company issued 10% additional equity capital and if due to that there is an increase in earnings per share by 5%; then it is not considered a good performance. He mentioned that rather focusing on the higher reported earnings per share, we should focus on the return on equity capital (I.e. RoE).

Textile operation

Textile operations once again were reported as poor earning in the year 1977. Mr.Buffett gave a reason to the shareholders for remaining into the textile business.

WB 1977 01

Insurance operation

Mr.Buffett quoted the shifting of a pendulum from good period to the worst period –

WB 1977 02

He mentioned his investment criteria as –

WB 1977 03

WB Letter 1978

Diversified Retailing Company got merged into the Berkshire Hathway and due to this merger; holding of Berkshire into the Blue Chip Stamps increased to ~58%.

Textile operation

When a product is indifferentiated and business is capital intensive in nature, we earn inadequate return whereas we can earn above-average returns during a tight supply or shortage of product.

WB Letter 1979

Investment into equities shares carried out till 1979 at the lower of aggregate cost or market value. But from the year 1979, the accounting profession has decided to carry out investment at the market value.

Mr.Buffett has mentioned “Return on Capital Employed” as the criteria for measuring managerial performance.

WB 1979 01

A few years ago, Mr.Buffett had decided to purchase a Waumbec Mills in Manchester, the stock was available statistically cheap, well below the working capital of the business and, in effect, got very substantial amounts of machinery and real estate for less than nothing. But this decision resulted into the poor performance and faced too many difficulties to manage the business. Due to this experience, Mr.Buffett communicates an effective point to understand –

WB 1979 02

According to Mr.Buffett, we should focus on the management who utilize retained earnings effectively and will translate a dollar retained by them into a dollar or more of subsequent market value for us.

Mr.Buffett recognized his mistake in buying a bond and he had accepted this in front of his shareholders.

WB 1979 03

If we recognize our mistake and accept it, only then we can learn from it.

Warren Buffett’s Letters 1957 – 2012

 

What is RoE (Return on Equity)? And Why always consider debt when calculating RoE?

Dear friends,

Let me try to explain Return on Equity in a simple manner.

What is RoE (Return on Equity)?

“Return on equity measures a corporation’s profitability by revealing how much profit a company generates with the money shareholders have invested.” — Investopedia

Return on Equity = Net Income/Shareholder’s Equity

That means in a simple manner % return which we earn by making profit from amount which we have invested, our own money.

ROE

If I had put Rs.100 in bank FD and on that Rs.100, I get Rs.8 then my RoE (%) on that particular investment is 8%.

Higher the RoE (%) means we can able to generate higher profit by utilizing our funds. So that incremental profit generation helps us for fulfilling our wishes and also can able to secure our future also.

The same concept applies with company’s RoE (%).

RoE16

Higher the RoE (%) means company can able to generate higher profit by utilizing their funds. So that incremental profit generation helps to the company to survive for the longer period of time and also can able to make good wealth creating decisions.

Always high RoE (%) is good and should believe it blindly ????? And not to believe it blindly then why?????

Now, question is why always consider debt when calculating RoE????

What is debt?

“Debt is an amount of money borrowed by one party from another.” (Investopedia)

A debt arrangement gives the borrowing party permission to borrow money under the condition that it is to be paid back at a later date, usually with interest.

Means borrowing Rs.100 with conditions to pay back with Rs.110, if 10% interest rate.

Let me explain 3 different situations with an examples —

MA

MB

MC

So that with a higher debt level, RoE (%) shows higher because of lower level of own fund and profit is excess of interest payment. But what if odds get wrong.

Risk and uncertainty never comes to us with prior intimations. So we must have to be very careful.

Sometimes its happen that we stay lucky enough to not faced risk in our life time but surprise and shock happens as it never happens before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQs47IT-d78

Now, let me take an example with the situation where surprise come and start earning low profit —

MA1

MB1

MC1

MD

Thus, as company or an individual who having higher level of debt then they only benefited till negative surprises not come to their life. But as negative surprises start coming then survival become a question mark for the companies as well as the individual.

This is only the reason why we try to select business having no debt because if worst happens then also business can able to survive.

md1

And if we found business with debt then must need to check earning and interest payment situation. Earning must be much higher then interest payment; so that can chances to survive with the worst situations.

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Bonus

Same we do also in the stock market —-

We forget worst scenario when surrounding us all happens good and start believing that

this-time-is-different_b

But my dear friends, time is always the same.

And then result of believing this time is different is —

Just one single moves enough to destroy us if we have built our portfolio on leverage or play with stock market with leverage.

Time always remain same; it’s a pendulum so not focus on making early huge returns which can cause to destruction of your life.

Inspired by — Safal Niveshak and Fundoo Professor