Berkshire Hathaway 2008 Annual Report Download - page 93

Besides, Berkshire has access to two low-cost, non-perilous sources of leverage that allow us to safely own far more assets than
our equity capital alone would permit: deferred taxes and “float,” the funds of others that our insurance business holds because
it receives premiums before needing to pay out losses. Both of these funding sources have grown rapidly and now total about
$68 billion.
Better yet, this funding to date has often been cost-free. Deferred tax liabilities bear no interest. And as long as we can break
even in our insurance underwriting the cost of the float developed from that operation is zero. Neither item, of course, is equity;
these are real liabilities. But they are liabilities without covenants or due dates attached to them. In effect, they give us the
benefit of debt—an ability to have more assets working for us—but saddle us with none of its drawbacks.
Of course, there is no guarantee that we can obtain our float in the future at no cost. But we feel our chances of attaining that
goal are as good as those of anyone in the insurance business. Not only have we reached the goal in the past (despite a number
of important mistakes by your Chairman), our 1996 acquisition of GEICO, materially improved our prospects for getting there
in the future.
8. A managerial “wish list” will not be filled at shareholder expense. We will not diversify by purchasing entire businesses at
control prices that ignore long-term economic consequences to our shareholders. We will only do with your money what we
would do with our own, weighing fully the values you can obtain by diversifying your own portfolios through direct purchases in
the stock market.
Charlie and I are interested only in acquisitions that we believe will raise the per-share intrinsic value of Berkshire’s stock. The
size of our paychecks or our offices will never be related to the size of Berkshire’s balance sheet.
9. We feel noble intentions should be checked periodically against results. We test the wisdom of retaining earnings by assessing
whether retention, over time, delivers shareholders at least $1 of market value for each $1 retained. To date, this test has been
met. We will continue to apply it on a five-year rolling basis. As our net worth grows, it is more difficult to use retained earnings
wisely.
We continue to pass the test, but the challenges of doing so have grown more difficult. If we reach the point that we can’t create
extra value by retaining earnings, we will pay them out and let our shareholders deploy the funds.
10. We will issue common stock only when we receive as much in business value as we give. This rule applies to all forms of
issuance—not only mergers or public stock offerings, but stock-for-debt swaps, stock options, and convertible securities as well.
We will not sell small portions of your company—and that is what the issuance of shares amounts to—on a basis inconsistent
with the value of the entire enterprise.
When we sold the Class B shares in 1996, we stated that Berkshire stock was not undervalued—and some people found that
shocking. That reaction was not well-founded. Shock should have registered instead had we issued shares when our stock was
undervalued. Managements that say or imply during a public offering that their stock is undervalued are usually being
economical with the truth or uneconomical with their existing shareholders’ money: Owners unfairly lose if their managers
deliberately sell assets for 80¢ that in fact are worth $1. We didn’t commit that kind of crime in our offering of Class B shares
and we never will. (We did not, however, say at the time of the sale that our stock was overvalued, though many media have
reported that we did.)
11. You should be fully aware of one attitude Charlie and I share that hurts our financial performance: Regardless of price, we have
no interest at all in selling any good businesses that Berkshire owns. We are also very reluctant to sell sub-par businesses as long
as we expect them to generate at least some cash and as long as we feel good about their managers and labor relations. We hope
not to repeat the capital-allocation mistakes that led us into such sub-par businesses. And we react with great caution to
suggestions that our poor businesses can be restored to satisfactory profitability by major capital expenditures. (The projections
will be dazzling and the advocates sincere, but, in the end, major additional investment in a terrible industry usually is about as
rewarding as struggling in quicksand.) Nevertheless, gin rummy managerial behavior (discard your least promising business at
each turn) is not our style. We would rather have our overall results penalized a bit than engage in that kind of behavior.
We continue to avoid gin rummy behavior. True, we closed our textile business in the mid-1980’s after 20 years of struggling
with it, but only because we felt it was doomed to run never-ending operating losses. We have not, however, given thought to
selling operations that would command very fancy prices nor have we dumped our laggards, though we focus hard on curing the
problems that cause them to lag.
12. We will be candid in our reporting to you, emphasizing the pluses and minuses important in appraising business value. Our
guideline is to tell you the business facts that we would want to know if our positions were reversed. We owe you no less.
Moreover, as a company with a major communications business, it would be inexcusable for us to apply lesser standards of
accuracy, balance and incisiveness when reporting on ourselves than we would expect our news people to apply when reporting
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