Enterprising Investor Forum

Buffett Biography – Part 7 Monday, December 17, 2007

This is the last part in this series and basically wraps up the other sections. It focuses on his career, transparency, contributions and happinesses. A happiness that is derived not by his material wealth but because he is able to do what he enjoys most every single day of his life: investing.

Enjoy!

Buffett Biography – Part 6 Wednesday, December 12, 2007

This section is about how Warren took advantage of the market crash and started to buy Coca-Cola, probably the best investment he ever made – a company which he had been following since he was a little kid.

Berkshire and the businesses it owned were so successful that investing the money they were making was becoming increasingly complicated. Buffett was faced with the task of having to find suitable investments to put roughly 100 million dollars to work ever week! Not an easy task…

Moreover, this section also startes to look at the famous shareholder meetings held in Omaha and how Warren and Charlie sat through all the questions that shareholders had, not considering them a nuisance but partners.

Enjoy.

Buffett Biography – Part 5 Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Mid to late 70s were shaped by the 3 very important women:

• Susie, his wife that suddenly decided that she needed space and moved to San Fransisco whilst remaining married and seeing each other
• Astrid, who eventually moved-in with Warren and effectively became his partner
• Mrs. B, from whom he bought the Nebraska Furniture Mart (signing a one page contract for 60 million dollars)

Furthermore, this section tackles the fact that – despite having tried his best – Warren had to shut down the Berkshire textile factory as it risked draining money from the other holdings.

Enjoy.

Buffett Biography – Part 4 Friday, December 7, 2007

This part starts to talk about how Warren took advantage of the oil crisis in the early 70s and bought a 5% stake in The Washington Post, the beginning of his friendship with Katharine Graham and his role in her life.

Enjoy.

Buffett Biography – Part 3 Thursday, December 6, 2007

Despite wanting to start his professional life as an investor Warren’s father convinced him to go to college (Columbia) where he ended up meeting Benjamin Graham. This event shaped the ‘Buffett Investment Strategy’ as we know it.

After Columbia and a brief stint at his father’s brokerage firm, he went into business for himself and set up his first Partnership. The video details how, along with meeting his first wife Susie and starting a family, he managed to thrive with the Partnership, gain control of Berkshire and use the cash it generated to invest in businesses with better prospects.

In 1969, with the markets continuing to rally, Buffett decided that is was time to dissolve his Partnership (worth 104 million dollars) and enter political life until markets started to behave in a way he felt more comfortable with; ultimately reentering the investment world in 1970.

Enjoy.

Buffett Biography – Part 2 Wednesday, December 5, 2007

This part, concentrates on the early days, growing up in difficult times, his family and his first steps as an investor:

- buying 6 packs of coke for 25 cents and selling each bottle for a 20% profit (basically, what he has been doing ever since)

- his first share purchase

- his paper delivery business in Washington (500 papers every morning, practically netting him minimum wage in his early teens)

- his pinball machine rental business

Basically, building up to Warren telling his sister that he wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 30 years old.

Enjoy.

Buffett Biography – Part 1 Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Today we start a 7 part video series on Warren Buffett – as usual, we will also post a short summary of each video.

The series was aired after his decision to donate 37 Billion dollars to charity, a sum that absolutely dwarfs all past great philanthropists. The first part concentrates on how he made his fortune, his talent for capital allocation and the donation.

Enjoy.