Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger – Page 3

Warren Buffett’s Letter 1999

Accepting mistakes – Mr. Buffett has accepted mistake of poor equity performance during the year 1999. Though they have a wonderful track record, they do not get trapped with the overconfidence, does not show any excuses, stay down to earth and stick with the reality.

Example of Management Quality

WB 1999 01

Example of Indian Companies

One of the footwear company in India

One of the diagnostic chain company of India

TTL 01

TTL 02

Mr. Buffett has given his view on Tech Companies –

WB 1999 02

We should have to define and written own investment philosophy and need to follow it strictly. If some of the investment opportunity does not fall under our investment philosophy then we should avoid it, though everyone else wants to capture a particular investment opportunity.

Business with a valuation –

Warren Buffett’s Letter 2000

Mr. Buffet has mentioned that line between speculation and investment is not clear and blur so we have to identify the investment process according to our course of action. The definition given by Mr. Benjamin Graham can be useful to us for identifying investment process – “An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operation not meeting these requirements are speculative.”

WB 2000 01

WB 2000 02

Example of the Indian companies which have a higher related party transaction

One of the Cable manufacturing company

SCL

One of the spirit company of India

USL 01

USL 02

We have seen into the current scenario that when people have started believing that investing/speculating to the equities provides them a higher return (no one remembers what Ben Graham said for return – should expect reasonable return) then only bubble started to build up.

WB 2000 04

Warren Buffett’s Letters 1957 – 2012

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

WB Letter 1964

Mr. Buffett had made an investment into the “Texas National Petroleum” where the announcement was made of sell out of oil and gas producing business to Union Oil of California.

WB 1964 01

This kind of situation has a protected downside and we can generate a decent annualized return. Buffett had made a decent annualized return on this workout.

WB 1964 02

We can make a decent return from such situations in India also. Here are some examples which are taken from Prof. Sanjay Bakshi’s note. (http://ppfas.com/media/articles/sanjay-bakshi/special-situations.pdf)

WB 1964 03

Mr. Buffett had sold off Dempster mill and he mentioned that “Our business is making excellent purchases — not making extraordinary sales.” This shows that Buffett has emphasized on the buying decision and if we think wisely then it’s only the buying decision that is in our control; so we should focus on buying a business at proper value hence reducing the additional efforts of selling.

WB Letter 1965

Mr. Buffett demonstrated an outstanding performance in Down Jones and other few investment management companies over a period of time.

WB 1965 01

WB 1965 02

Up to 1964, Mr. Buffett had categorized his investment operations into 3 categories (i.e. General, Workouts, and Controls) but from the year 1965, Mr.Buffett expanded his categories of investment operations into 4 (i.e. General -Private Owner Basis, Generals -Relatively Undervalued, Workouts and Controls).