Being Managed by Berkshire Hathaway
Aug 7th, 2007 by Martin Lee
Berkshire Annual Letter 1998 (Part 1)
Being owned by Berkshire can make the best of managers even more effective. All the ritualistic and non-productive activities like board meetings, press interviews, presentations by investment bankers or talks with financial analysts that go with the job of CEO are eliminated.
Managers are given a simple mission. Run the business as if:
1) They own 100% of it.
2) It is the only asset in the world that they and their family have or will ever have.
3) They can’t sell or merge it for at least a century.
Accounting considerations are also unimportant in any decision making. What is more important is the long term business growth.
Furthermore, funding will never become an issue again. No worries about financing, credit ratings or meeting expectations for earnings per share.