Warren Buffett
Illustration by Andre Gottschalk
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At 92, Warren Buffett remains as sharp and engaged as ever, and continues to look for opportunities to put finishing touches on what he has called his Mona Lisa—
Berkshire Hathaway
.
Buffett has been active in the stock market in the past year, as highlighted by the purchase of 25% of
Occidental Petroleum
.
He has also added to Berkshire’s holdings in five Japanese trading companies and now owns $20 billion of them with a big profit. Buffett’s
Apple
purchase probably is his biggest win ever. That stake is now worth $165 billion, five times what Berkshire paid. But the elephant-size acquisition that he has long sought still eludes him.
Buffett loves reading financial reports. He mentioned at the annual meeting in May that he had just gone through
General Motors
’ 1932 annual report and was impressed with the “honesty” and insight of the document written at the depth of the Depression. As he told Charlie Rose in an interview last year, he’s “always on the clock” for Berkshire and still works for the $100,000 annual salary he has taken for more than a generation.
Thanks to Buffett’s efforts over 58 years, Berkshire has never been in better shape, with nearly $35 billion in annual earnings power. The stock is slightly behind the market over the past 10 years, but has crushed the
S&P 500 index
since he took over in 1965. The shares have topped $500,000, up from about $20, an incredible 25,000-fold gain.
Buffett shows no signs of wanting to give up the top job. Investors are happy to see him run Berkshire for as long as he can.
Write to Andrew Bary at [email protected]
Source: https://www.barrons.com/articles/berkshire-hathaway-warren-buffett-d30fb646?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo