저자: The Financial Economics · 외국인
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curious as you were sitting um in Omaha this weekend what you think the future of Berkshire looks like and whether you think it ultimately changes in a Greg Aable world. Sure. So I think you know Buffett has been very thoughtful about everything uh in his life and in particular Bergkshire setting it up so that after he is no longer running it it continues to succeed and I think he's achieved that by buying these really great businesses but I would say maybe more importantly building a culture principles uh governance you know thoughts uh that he's imprinted in the minds of the shareholders and imprinted obviously in the minds of the uh executives and and the board of directors.
So I think you got a principalbased company that's going to stay a principal based company going forward. Now he's stepping aside uh with 350 billion of cash on the balance sheet. I think you know I break Ael's known to be a superb operator uh and a very good allocator of capital certainly in you know the businesses that he's managed.
I think it's yet to be proven uh that the current management team has has the you know capability that Buffett has had to obviously buy businesses and it's more challenging now because of the scale. Uh so I don't I think for sure uh the businesses will be run arguably you know potentially even better than they've been run historically because now a great real operator focused on that running the company.
The question though uh is one I think they're going to start returning capital. You do in the form of dividends. I think they'll yeah dividends. I think they will be a little bit more aggressive about buying back stock. I don't see Bergkshire waking up in six months and their Berkshire announcing a hundred billion dollar acquisition.
I think the new CEO will be and the new board not the new board the current the new CEO and the current board will be a little bit more careful uh on the first deals because if if Berkshire's first deal turns out not to be a good one, you know, I think that the market will kind of frown upon that. But I think the business will do very well.
you know, you got Todd, you got Ted, you got some very capable uh people and and uh you know, it's extremely well capitalized. Uh the insurance business, by the way, has a lot of continuity and some some great talent. So, I I wouldn't bet against Bergkshire. One of the things that's happened is it's become a crowded market, meaning there's a lot of private equity players that are trying to buy up, I imagine, a lot of the stuff that you may want to buy.
By the way, they're buying up a lot of the stuff that Warren Buffett used to buy. Sure. So, what's going to give you an edge in this case? Sure. So, one, uh, we like, you know, great businesses and so do private equity firms, but the big competitor, maybe I'm by example. So, I I met with Glenn Yncan, uh, formerly co-CEO of Carlile, now uh, governor of Virginia, and he was saying, "Oh, I really love what you're doing with this Howard Hughes thing." This is when, again, it was publicly announced, but obviously we had not gotten to the deal done.
He says, "You know, the biggest problem I had in private equity is I'd have to sit down with Mr. Smith and tell him, you realize, of course, that after we buy your business, um, you're going to kind of be on the merrygoround and every 5 or 7 years your company that you built is going to get sold to someone else.
And I had to be candid with them about this, but that's the nature of private equity. And what Buffett was able to achieve over time is he could sit down with Mr. Smith, who was, you know, maybe 70 years old. He built this incredible business. It's an important business in the community. And he can say to him, "Look, I'm going to buy your business.
I'm going to take very good care of it. I'm going to own it for decades. Your employees will be proud." Um and Mr. Smith said found that a very appealing notion after he spent his entire life building a business. Now the issue for Bergkshire today is at a trillion dollar scale you know buying even a billion five billion even 10 billion dollar business doesn't move the needle.
Uh whereas for us of course we're starting out you know market cap today you know is what three and a half billion or something. Uh so we have the benefit of starting small but we have the similar benefits of being able to be a permanent owner of a company which is something that uh uh and you know depending on where our we have to get our stock price to closer to intrinsic value.
We can also offer a tax-free execution. We can give someone the ability to kind of sell some of their business for cash, sell them for stock and go along for the ride with us. Um Becky's back in Omaha where you just came from. She has a question for you. Please. Hey Bill, great to see you. Um, thanks for coming on with us this morning.
I'm so intrigued by what you just said about how you guys would either build or buy an insurance company that the the benefit of the float hasn't gone unnoticed by you. First of all, do you think it'd be easier to buy one or to build one? I don't know where you think prices are and valuations are on these things right now.
And second of all, over the weekend, something A Jane kind of focused in on and and talked about on stage was the idea that all these private equity companies have now gotten into the insurance business and he thinks are are writing premiums that aren't at great prices and that don't make it very profitable long-term to to do some of that business.
He basically said almost in these exact words that Bergkshire's waving the white flag when it comes to some of that, particularly when it comes to life insurance. I believe that they can't write that insurance at competitive levels because they didn't think he doesn't think the pricing is right from private equity.
Sure. So what Ajet was referring to is that you know the Apollo of the world, Brookfield and others have issued annuities which are more financial products than they are insurance products but they're they they uh occur in the context of a regulated insurance company and they take that capital uh you know uh multiple that capital and they lend it uh with their sort of proprietary access to uh private debt type deals and they make a spread uh and that business is I would say getting more crowded uh over time.
Um but to answer your question directly, I think it's more likely that we will build an insurance company. In fact, we have uh a person that we is a phenomenal executive in the industry that we're uh just beginning a conversation with uh that's intrigued by what we're doing. And uh I like the idea of building from scratch because you don't assume a bunch of other people's kind of liabilities.
Uh, and um, I think, you know, he's a super talented executive and hopefully we can make a deal with him. But that would be I kind of more intrigued with the idea of building something from a blank sheet of paper.
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