
Berkshire 1992 Shareholder Letter - Cliff's Notes Version
This is the sixteenth in a series of blog posts that will analyze / summarize Warren Buffett's shareholder letters from 1977-2015. For all of the prior shareholder letters, see here. The 1992 letter weighs in at 11,200 words, a 23% increase from 9,130 words the prior year. Berkshire's gain in net worth during 1992 was $1.5 billion. Very little dilution accompanied the 377X increase in book value during the 28 years that Buffett had then been at the helm of Berkshire [which eq

Berkshire 1991 Shareholder Letter - Cliff's Notes Version
This is the fifteenth in a series of blog posts that will analyze / summarize Warren Buffett's shareholder letters from 1977-2015. For all of the prior shareholder letters, see here. The 1991 letter weighs in at 9,130 words, a 43% decrease from 16,020 words the prior year. Notwithstanding this shrinkage, Berkshire's gain in net worth during 1990 was $2.1 billion, or 39.6% of beginning book value, rebounding nicely from a 7.4% increase the prior year. Buffett notes that, as of


Theranos and the Power of Psychological Denial
The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos could easily fill a 500-page book. At one point, supposedly sophisticated investors assigned a valuation of $9 billion to this company. Today, however, according to Forbes the valuation stands a precisely $0. This blog post examines how it could possibly be that so many intelligent people could be so easily fooled by what now appears to be a virtual hoax of a company. Surely something must have gone haywire in the brains of t

Berkshire 1990 Shareholder Letter - Cliff's Notes Version
This is the fourteenth in a series of blog posts that will analyze / summarize Warren Buffett's shareholder letters from 1977-2015. For all of the prior shareholder letters, see here. The 1990 letter weighs in at 16,020 words, an 11% increase from 14,420 words the prior year. Berkshire's gain in net worth during 1990 was $362 million, or 7.3% of beginning book value, down from a $1.515 billion gain in 1988. Berkshire's growth rate was lackluster in 1990 because their four maj

Berkshire 1989 Shareholder Letter, Part 2 - Cliff's Notes Version
This is second part of the thirteenth post in a series of blog posts that will analyze / summarize Warren Buffett's shareholder letters from 1977-2015. For all of the prior shareholder letters, see here. The 1989 letter weighs in at 14,420 words, a 24% increase from 11,670 words the prior year. Berkshire's gain in net worth during 1989 was $1.515 billion, or 44% of beginning book value, up from a $569 million gain in 1988. Therefore 1989 represented the first year that net wo

Seven Corners Reiterates Buy Rating on the Genworth Financial (GNW) / China Oceanwide Merger Arbitra
Today Seven Corners Capital Management reiterated its "BUY" rating on the Genworth Financial (GNW) / China Oceanwide Merger Arbitrage. Specifically, we are long GNW, believing that the most recent closing price of $3.30/share presents an attractive 49% return to the expected value of $4.93/share. Our thesis on the Genworth arbitrage is summarized as follows [NOTE: To find a PDF containing our full updated GNW writeup, please visit our Research section [link here]]: The buyout