Each year, for thirty years, two veteran investment advisors attended Berkshire Hathaway's Annual Shareholders Meeting. After each meeting, they chronicled Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger's best lessons from that year. This book compiles those thirty years of wisdom for the first time.

For the first time the complete financial history of Berkshire Hathaway is available under one cover in chronological format. Beginning at the origins of the predecessor companies in the textile industry, the reader can examine the development of the modern-day conglomerate year-by-year and decade-by-decade, watching as the struggling textile company morphs into what it has become today. This comprehensive analysis distils over 10,000 pages of research material, including Buffett’s Chairman’s letters, Berkshire Hathaway annual reports and SEC filings, annual meeting transcripts, subsidiary financials, and more. The analysis of each year is supplemented with Buffett’s own commentary where relevant, and examines all important acquisitions, investments, and other capital allocation decisions. The appendices contain balance sheets, income statements, statements of cash flows, and key ratios dating back to the 1930s, materials brought together for the first time. The structure of the book allows the new student to follow the logic, reasoning, and capital allocation decisions made by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger from the very beginning. Existing Berkshire shareholders and long-time observers will find new information and refreshing analysis, and a convenient reference guide to the decades of financial moves that built the modern-day respected enterprise that is Berkshire Hathaway.

Berkshire Hathaway, the $300 billion conglomerate that Warren Buffett built, is among the worldÕs largest and most famous corporations. Yet, for all its power and celebrity, few people understand Berkshire, and many assume it cannot survive without Buffett. This book proves that assumption wrong. In a comprehensive portrait of the distinct corporate culture that unites and sustains BerkshireÕs fifty direct subsidiaries, Lawrence A. Cunningham unearths the traits that assure the conglomerateÕs perpetual prosperity. Riveting stories recount each subsidiaryÕs origins, triumphs, and journey to Berkshire and reveal the strategies managers use to generate economic value from intangible values, such as thrift, integrity, entrepreneurship, autonomy, and a sense of permanence. Rich with lessons for those wishing to profit from the Berkshire model, this engaging book is a valuable read for entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, and investors, and it makes an important resource for scholars of corporate stewardship. General readers will enjoy learning how an iconoclastic businessman transformed a struggling shirt company into a corporate fortress destined to be his lasting legacy.

Das einzige Buch, das einen der geheimnisvollsten Anleger im Investmentgeschaft portratiert: Charlie Munger - der Kopf, der hinter Investmentguru Warren Buffett stand. Geschrieben von Janet Lowe, beruhmte Autorin der WILEY Speaks-Bestsellerreihe. Sie hat hier eine faszinierende Verbindung von Geschaftsphilosophie, und Biographie geschaffen, eine einzigartige Kombination aus Mungers Witz, Humor, Know-How und Erfolg. Offenbart werden auch die Taktiken und Techniken dieses wenig bekannten, aber au?erst einflu?reichen Finanzgenies und Lehrmeisters von Warren Buffett. Ein Buch zum Verschenken schon!

Since the 1950s, Warren Buffett and his partners have backed some of the twentieth century's most profitable, trendsetting companies. But how did they know they were making the right investments? What did Buffet and his partners look for in an up-and-coming company, and how can others replicate their approach? A gift to Buffett followers who have long sought a pattern to the investor's success, Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett presents the most detailed analysis to date of Buffet's long-term investment portfolio. Yefei Lu, an experienced investor, starts with Buffett's interest in the Sanborn Map Company in 1958 and tracks nineteen more of his major investments in companies like See's Candies, the Washington Post, GEICO, Coca-Cola, US Air, Wells Fargo, and IBM. Accessing partnership letters, company documents, annual reports, third-party references, and other original sources, Lu pinpoints what is unique about Buffett's timing, instinct, use of outside knowledge, and postinvestment actions, and he identifies what could work well for all investors in companies big and small, domestic and global. His substantial chronology accounts for broader world events and fluctuations in the U.S. stock market, suggesting Buffett's most important trait may be the breadth of his expertise.

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's visionary vice chairman and Warren Buffett's indispensable financial partner, has outperformed market indexes again and again, and he believes any investor can do the same. His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom"—a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management—allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment. Munger's system has steered his investments for forty years and has guided generations of successful investors. This book presents the essential steps of Munger's investing strategy, condensed here for the first time from interviews, speeches, writings, and shareholder letters, and paired with commentary from fund managers, value investors, and business-case historians. Derived from Ben Graham's value-investing system, Munger's approach is straightforward enough that ordinary investors can apply it to their portfolios. This book is not simply about investing. It is about cultivating mental models for your whole life, but especially for your investments.

In the third edition of this international best seller, Lawrence Cunningham brings you the latest wisdom from Warren Buffett’s annual letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. New material addresses: the financial crisis and its continuing implications for investors, managers and society; the housing bubble at the bottom of that crisis; the debt and derivatives excesses that fueled the crisis and how to deal with them; controlling risk and protecting reputation in corporate governance; Berkshire’s acquisition and operation of Burlington Northern Santa Fe; the role of oversight in heavily regulated industries; investment possibilities today; and weaknesses of popular option valuation models. Some other material has been rearranged to deepen the themes and lessons that the collection has always produced: Buffett’s “owner-related business principles” are in the prologue as a separate subject and valuation and accounting topics are spread over four instead of two sections and reordered to sharpen their payoff. Media coverage is available at the following links: Interviews/Podcasts: Motley Fool, click here. Money, Riches and Wealth, click here. Manual of Ideas, click here. Corporate Counsel, click here. Reviews: William J. Taylor, ABA Banking Journal, click here. Bob Morris, Blogging on Business, click here. Pamela Holmes, Saturday Evening Post, click here. Kevin M. LaCroix, D&O Diary, click here. Blog Posts: On Finance issues (Columbia University), click here. On Berkshire post-Buffett (Manual of Ideas), click here. On Publishing the book (Value Walk), click here. On Governance issues (Harvard University blog), click here. Featured Stories/Recommended Reading: Motley Fool, click here. Stock Market Blog, click here. Motley Fool Interviews with LAC at Berkshire's 2013 Annual Meeting Berkshire Businesses: Vastly Different, Same DNA, click here. Is Berkshire's Fat Wallet an Enemy to Its Success?, click here. Post-Buffett Berkshire: Same Question, Same Answer, click here. How a Disciplined Value Approach Works Across the Decades, click here. Through the Years: Constant Themes in Buffett's Letters, click here. Buffett's Single Greatest Accomplishment, click here. Where Buffett Is Finding Moats These Days, click here. How Buffett Has Changed Through the Years, click here. Speculating on Buffett's Next Acquisition, click here. Buffett Says “Chief Risk Officers” Are a Terrible Mistake, click here. Berkshire Without Buffett, click here.