Louis Bannon

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on the atlas — 32

highlights — 128

“You need to do your research really thoroughly in the first place. My focus was two years before we did the acquisition. When we did the due diligence we had a huge team that went there. We knew exactly what we are getting,’’ Mr Wilson said when asked the lessons Reece has learnt so far moving into the American market for the first time. “We have done everything conservatively. The US market is looking pretty good. All the fundamentals are good. We are only in the sunbelt region, which has strong population growth.’’
Reece taps into US for long haul with Morsco
“We have 13 of our senior guys who have relocated their families to America for this. When I go there and when you sit with their families and meet their wives, you can see they have all settled in well. It almost feels like it is a honeymoon period. Anything Reece or Australian is seen as a good thing over there. In terms of how we planned, we could not have asked for a better start.”
Reece taps into US for long haul with Morsco
“What we have here is a 100-year-old place that needs a refurbishment while you’re living in it. So we have started by restumping the place. Then there needs to be a new roof and walls,’’ the Reece managing director said of Morsco, a key American distributor of plumbing, waterworks, heating and cooling products. “The biggest thing will be when we rewire the company, which is the technology part. The opportunity for Morsco is even bigger than I thought but there is still foundational risk.
Reece taps into US for long haul with Morsco
“Instances of extreme movements in share prices over very short periods, such as occurred during the ‘flash crash’ in the US on 6 May this year, sharpened awareness that increased volatility and risk of market disruption are the prices that long-term investors may have to pay in markets with multiple execution venues," Mr Gonski said.
Elstone decides to quit ASX
The government has given in principle approval for Chi-X, an electronic stock exchange backed by Japanese broking group Nomura, to operate in the local market and the group is hopeful of scoring a licence next year.
Elstone decides to quit ASX
ASX chairman David Gonski told shareholders the exchange was continuing to weigh up its options. “Over the last three years, we have said that we are conscientiously evaluating the exchange space," Mr Gonski said. “As a board, we look at it and we will continue to look at it. “I should also make it very clear that if we have something to disclose, we will disclose it."
Elstone decides to quit ASX
Updated Sep 30, 2010 – 6.28am, first published at 12.09am
Elstone decides to quit ASX
Within the app’s privacy settings, users can also opt in or opt out of matching with their Facebook friends’ Facebook friends. The app does not match people with their own Facebook friends, unless explicitly directed to: The “Secret Crush” feature allows users to identify up to nine of their Facebook friends as people they have a crush on, and “no one will know that you’ve entered their name,” according to Facebook’s Newsroom blog, unless your name also appears on their Secret Crush list. In that case, Facebook Dating notifies both parties. (Facebook makes no mention of what happens if two, th…
How Facebook Dating Is Different From Other Dating Apps - The Atlantic
If those sound suspiciously like online versions of the old-school ways people used to find dates and meet partners—by joining groups and clubs, by meeting through friends, by going to events, sometimes even by telling a mutual friend about a crush and having them surreptitiously investigate and report back—that’s intentional. A representative for Facebook confirmed that developers wanted to address a couple of specific problems they saw with how existing dating apps had reformed, and arguably gamified, dating.
How Facebook Dating Is Different From Other Dating Apps - The Atlantic
(Pompeo had earlier gathered New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam for what became known as the “Quad Plus” talks on trade, technology, and supply chain security.)
Why the Quad Alarms China | Foreign Affairs
When Abe, the driving force behind the Quad, unexpectedly resigned, in September 2007 (before becoming prime minister again in 2012),
Why the Quad Alarms China | Foreign Affairs
This gathering of “the Quad,” as the grouping was known, was merely “a headline-grabbing idea,” scoffed Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “They are like the sea foam in the Pacific or Indian Ocean: they get some attention but will soon dissipate.”
Why the Quad Alarms China | Foreign Affairs
Australia has lost more than 100,000 foreign students in the past financial year at a cost of nearly $6bn to the economy, with higher education leaders warning that the sector will not recover from any further Covid-19 induced delays.
Coronavirus: Foreign student lockout ‘a $6bn loss’
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in 2019 that Crown partnered with high-roller junket operators who churned hundreds of millions of dirty money through the Southbank casino. That sparked the NSW Bergin inquiry, which found Crown unfit to open its Sydney casino in February
Crown investor wants ‘urgent’ national casino framework
"But fundamentally the promotional plan and how we work with suppliers to create value for customers every day means customers always feel they're getting great value."
The (not so) secret to JB Hi-Fi's success
At the A2 Milk Company, the most recent person to hold the CMO role was Susan Massasso. Massasso left the A2 Milk Company in November 2019, only to rejoin the company in the newly created role of chief growth and brand officer in February 2020. Massasso left the A2 Milk Company in April.
Danone names replacement for A2 Milk-bound Edith Bailey
At the A2 Milk Company, the most recent person to hold the CMO role was Susan Massasso. Massasso left the A2 Milk Company in November 2019, only to rejoin the company in the newly created role of chief growth and brand officer in February 2020. Massasso left the A2 Milk Company in April.
Shifting cost optimisation left: Spotify Backstage Cost Insights – James Governor's Monkchips
WARREN BUFFETT: There’s one chapter in “The General Theory” that relates to markets, and the psychology of markets, and the behavior of market participants and so on, that probably is, aside from Ben Graham’s two chapters, eight and 20, in “The Intelligent Investor” — I think you’ll find you’ll get as much wisdom from reading that as anything written in investments. And you’ll know it when you see it in “The General Theory.”
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
And if you take a CEO that’s in a job for 10 years, and he has a business that earns, say, 12 percent on equity, and he’s — and he pays out a third, that means he’s got 8 percent per year of equity. I mean, when you think of his tenure in office, how much capital he’s allocated, it’s an enormous factor over time. And yet, probably relatively few chief executives are either trained for, or are selected on, the basis of their ability to allocate capital. I mean, they get there through other routes. So, I’ve said it’s like somebody playing the piano all their life, and then getting to Carnegie Ha…
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
There’s a huge difference in the business that grows and requires a lot of capital to do so, and the business that grows, and doesn’t require capital. SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH And I would say that, generally, financial analysts do not give adequate weight to the difference in those. In fact, it’s amazing how little attention is paid to that. Believe me, if you’re investing, you should pay a lot of attention to it.
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
CHARLIE MUNGER: Do we hedge? WARREN BUFFETT: The answer to that is we don’t. And Coca-Cola, as I mentioned, gets 80 percent of their earnings from a variety of currencies, the yen and the mark being two very important ones. They’re going to be getting a very high percentage five years from now, 10 years from now. They do certain currency transactions, but it’s a practical matter. If you own Coca-Cola, you own a bunch of foreign bonds with coupons on them, denominated in local currencies, that go on forever. Now, should you try and engage in currency swaps on all those coupons — you don’t know …
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
But the one thing I can assure you is that, probably, if you spend a relatively small amount of time on it, the facts that you will have available to you for making a decision on that question will be just as good, essentially, as the facts you’d get if you’d worked at the Coca-Cola Company for 20 years, or if you were a food and beverage analyst in Wall Street or anything of the sort.
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
CHARLIE MUNGER: Berkshire has a substantial shareholder whose father accumulated the original position, and when he died he left a very large estate, practically all of which was in two securities, Berkshire and one other outstanding company. SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH A bank was co-trustee. And the bank trust officer said you’ve got to diversify this. And, you know, it was a very large estate. And the young man who was co-trustee with the bank said, “Well,” he says, “you know, if my father believed the way you do, he might have been a trust officer in a bank instead of — (laughter) — leaving thi…
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
If you don’t understand businesses, then you’re better off diversifying and fairly widely diversifying.
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
We’re not wishing it on anybody. But if you asked us next month whether Berkshire would be better off if the whole stock market were down 50 percent or where it is now, we would be better off if it was down 50 percent, whether we had any cash on hand now or not, because we would be generating cash to buy things.
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
And the stock did go down at that time and hit 15,500. And there were — that — I think it was close to 300 shares, which is 4 1/2 million dollars’ worth of stock. And somebody made a decision, apparently, that they — or some small number of people — made a decision that they wanted to sell something at 15,500 that they could have sold for 16,000. The lower it went, the better they liked it, apparently. I mean, the better they liked the sale. (Laughter) Which, you know, has always struck me as like having a house that you like, and you’re living in, and, you know, it’s worth $100,000 and you te…
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
One of the things that was interesting to me, I don’t know whether it was three months ago or when, but I happened to be talking to the [NYSE] specialist, terrific specialist, Jimmy Maguire. He had to leave, but he was here earlier in the session. And I think, at the time, the stock was around 16,000 or something like that. And he had some rather significant stop-loss orders on the books at 15-5, or thereabouts, involving some hundreds of shares. And that to me is a signal that, you know, we have some people that are — in my view — are not really the kind of owners that we would like to attrac…
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
But your universe of opportunity shrinks. But it shrinks no matter — I mean, you can set it up in 20 bank accounts or one bank account, but you still — the universe still has to fit the 10 billion, in aggregate.
Afternoon Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, I know Peter. I don’t know him well, but we’ve played bridge together in Omaha as a matter of fact. SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH I like him personally, and obviously he has an outstanding record. And he has written those two books, which have been bestsellers, about his investment philosophy. I don’t really have anything — you know, I’m not going to embroider on his. There’s certainly a fair amount of overlap. There’s some difference. Peter, obviously, likes to diversify a lot more than I do. He owns more stocks than the names of companies I can remember. I mean, but that’s Pe…
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
And when we can’t find anything for a while, the cash piles up. But that’s not through choice, that’s because we’re failing at what we essentially are trying to do, which is to find things to buy, and — We make no attempt to guess whether cash is going to be worth more three months from now or six months from now or a year from now. So it is — you will never see — we don’t have any meetings of any kind anyway at Berkshire, but we would never have an asset allocation meeting. We would — (laughter) — keep looking. I mean, Charlie’s looking, I’m looking. Some of our managers are looking. We’re lo…
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
WARREN BUFFETT: We think — at least I think — I’m extraordinarily well treated by this society, and I think most people with high incomes are. I think if you transported most of them to Bangladesh or Peru or something, they would find out how much of it is them and how much is the society. SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH And I think there’s nothing better than a market system, in terms of motivating people and in terms of producing the goods and services that the society wants. But I do think it gets a little out of whack, in terms of what the productivity may be of an outstanding teacher compared to …
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
In your most recent letter to shareholders in Wesco’s annual report, you calculated the intrinsic value of Wesco at about $100 per share, and compared that to the then-current market price of Wesco of about $130 per share. In the same letter, you stated that it was unclear whether at then-current market prices Berkshire or Wesco presented a better value to prospective purchasers. In light of that, would you compare the intrinsic value of Berkshire to its current market price? CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, the answer to that is no. (Laughter) Berkshire has never calculated intrinsic value per share and…
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
You might pay more if you were writing a check on someone else’s bank account than if you were writing it on your own. It’s been known to happen. (Laughter) SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I think that’s exactly right. And if you stop to think about it, if a hundred percent of a business is for sale, you’ve got — the average corporate buyer is being run by people who have the mindset of people buying with somebody else’s money. And we have the mindset of people buying with our own money.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
You’re not going to buy any bargains, and I mean, you shouldn’t even approach the idea of buying a bargain in a negotiated purchase. You want to buy it from people who are going to run it for you. You want to buy it from people who are intelligent enough to price their business properly, and they are. I mean, that’s the way things are.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
Counter to that is we can usually get more for our money in wonderful businesses, in terms of buying little pieces of them in the market, because the market is far more inefficient in pricing businesses than is the negotiated market.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
We prefer to buy entire businesses, or 80 percent or greater interest in businesses, partly for the tax reasons you mentioned, and frankly, we like it better. We just, it’s the kind of business we would like to build if we had our absolute druthers on it.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
We don’t know, and we don’t think about when something will happen. We think about what will happen. It’s fairly, it’s not so difficult to figure out what will happen. It’s impossible, in our view, to figure out when it will happen. So we focus on what will happen.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
I mean, what we fear is an irrational bull market that’s sustained for some long period of time.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
To give up what you’re doing well because of guesses about what’s going to happen in some macro way just doesn’t make any sense to us. The best thing that can happen from Berkshire’s standpoint — we don’t wish this on anybody — but is that over time is to have markets that go down a tremendous amount. I mean, we are going to be buyers of things over time. And if you’re going to be buyers of groceries over time, you like grocery prices to go down. If you’re going to be buying cars over time, you like car prices to go down.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
The first one is concerning Mr. Munger. We know what Mr. Buffett’s retirement plans are. I was wondering what yours — your plans for the future concerning Berkshire are? CHARLIE MUNGER: I have always preferred the system of retirement where you can’t quite tell from observing from the outside whether the man is working or retired. (Laughter) WARREN BUFFETT: He does it well, too. (Laughter) CHARLIE MUNGER: You know, a problem in many businesses, particularly the more bureaucratic ones, is that your employees retire, but they don’t tell you. (Laughter)
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
The big thing to do is avoid being wrong. (Laughter) SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH CHARLIE MUNGER: There are some things that are so intrinsically dangerous. Another of my heroes is Mark Twain, who looked at the promoters of his day and he said, “A mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar.” (Laughter)
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
And some people think that if you jump over a seven-foot bar that the ribbon they pin on you is going to be worth more money than if you step over a one-foot bar. And it just isn’t true in the investment world, at all.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
Yeah. I don’t know that much about those businesses. We do have one person in this audience, at least, who owns a lot of Reebok. But I am not expressing a negative view in any way on that. I just — I don’t understand that — I don’t understand their competitive position and the likelihood of permanence of their competitive position over a 10 or 20 year period as well as I think I understand the position of Brown and Dexter.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
UDIENCE MEMBER: And my second question is, in light of the multiple disasters that have taken place in LA, has that had any impact on the cats for Berkshire? SYNC VIDEO TO PARAGRAPH WARREN BUFFETT: On our super-cat business? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. WARREN BUFFETT: The LA earthquake, which is originally — I believe the first estimate of insured damage was a billion-five, which struck us as kind of ludicrous, but has now escalated. The last official estimate, the one we use that’s a trigger in our policies, I think is either 4.5 billion or 4.8 billion. But it’s going to be higher than that. Our lo…
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
And so, we would judge that — I don’t think we would come to an independent decision that there was some great utility residing in some product that had been available to the public for a long time, but that the public and not endorsed in any way.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
we would reserve the right to change our mind. I always liked Lord Keynes when he said that he got new facts or new insights, why he changed his mind and then he’d say, what do you do?
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. Buffett, my name is Bill Ackman. I’m from New York City. And my question relates to the appeal of Salomon Brothers as an investment.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
If you find a management that doesn’t care about the accounting but does explain to you in clear terms what’s going on, I think you should regard that as a plus in owning a security.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
And, of course, it’s always been the job of the Fed, basically, to lean against the wind. Which, of course, means if the wind changes, you fall flat on your face. But that’s another question.
Morning Session - 1994 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting