1/🧵

Here’s Buffett at 32, when he earned a million per year - or $8.8M per year in today’s dollars.

In this thread, we celebrate #BerkshireHathaway AGM weekend by looking closer at how he did it. We finish with a link to the 152 pages of gold: Buffett Partnership letters.
2/🧵

Many hedge fund managers expense so-called “2/20”, meaning that whatever happens with the investments, they get 2% of the assets plus 20% of any profits.

Even though they’d underperform the market, such system would incentivize them for the effort.

“Thanks!”
3/🧵

Here’s the outcome for the investors in this typical 2/20 model. See how 5% returns before fees leave investors with only 2% returns after fees (40% of the total).

But Buffett was different.
4/🧵

Buffett, aged 26, started Buffett Associates (later to be consolidated to Buffett Partnership) with initial capital of $105,100.

In total he raised $105,000 in capital and put in $100 himself. As he put it: “there's no prize for guessing who put in the $100”.
5/🧵

He was no fan of getting paid for nothing. The partnership had various fee structures (see pic below) but mainly the approach was:

- Investors are first paid 6% hurdle rate
- 25% of any excess profits to Buffett, remaining 75% to investors
6/🧵

The Buffett Partnership fee structure was a thing of wonder (albeit only for superior investors).

See attached how his approach protected his Limited Partners from downside, while providing himself with great upside potential.

Oh, did he make his time worthwhile.
7/🧵

The Buffett Partnership quickly left all major indices in the dust. Its overperformance was staggering despite the fund manager’s relatively young age.

You can imagine what kind of an impact this had on Buffett’s wealth.
8/🧵

At inception in 1956, Buffett had put in $100.

In 1961, Warren and his wife Susie already had a net worth of $1.025M in the partnership. That’s roughly $200k per year ($1.5M per year in today’s dollars) for the Buffetts in 1956-1961.

But that was only the start.
9/🧵

In 1961-1965, Buffett’s worth grew 34-101% per year with the success of the partnership, well exceeding the partnership gains of 14-47% per year.

At the age of 35, Buffett’s annual gains, in today’s dollars, reached a stunning $29M.
10/🧵

The partnership ended up growing from $105,100 in 1956 to $7.2M in 1961, only to exceed $100M in size by 1968.

After finding no more attractive buying opportunities in 1969, Buffett liquidated the partnership and started to focus on a company called Berkshire Hathaway.
11/🧵

Here’s me on my pilgrimage to Buffett’s house in Omaha almost a decade ago. Can’t wait for the coronavirus to pass and visit the Annual General Meeting in person.

Hope to meet as many of you there.
12/🧵

Highly recommend reading the amazing partnership letters (152p) from csinvesting.org/wp-content/upl…

Thank you for making it this far with me 😊 Remember to enjoy the meeting today from finance.yahoo.com/brklivestream/

Have a nice weekend!

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More from @hkeskiva

24 Apr
1/🧵

As someone who likes profits, been asking myself, if I had invested in attractive high-growth companies in their early years e.g.
-Amazon
-or Netflix?

In this thread, we learn one way to value PRE-PROFIT COMPANIES by using gross income.

Best served with a cup of tea 🫖
2/🧵

The obvious problem is that not all promising companies show earnings or cash flow starting Day 1.

Earnings are what the hardcore “value investors” demand for their valuation Excel exercise.

But it’s lazy to stop there. How could we rethink the valuation process?
3/🧵

If we can’t rely on cash flows or earnings, we must “climb up” the income statement. Operating income, or EBIT, could work.

But many companies invest heavily in growth, suppressing operating income through higher operating expenses (OPEX), see e.g. #Amazon in 1999-2001.
Read 32 tweets
3 Apr
1/🧵

Ordering food online is quickly becoming the next big thing.

In this thread (🧵), we'll take a deeper look at
- The market
- The business model
- Basket size trends
- Costs per order
- Economics

This is a long one, best served with a hot cup of chai 🫖
2/🧵

I’m sharing what I've found during the past few months not to say how things are, but to learn from better-advised contributors. Any challenging or complementary insights very welcome.

With that said, let’s start with the market...
3/🧵

Market appeal is obvious; people have to eat.

TAM for food purchases is counted in trillions, delivery businesses have raised billions, and online share growing fast. Some listed companies include DoorDash, Delivery Hero, Deliveroo, Just Eat TakeAway, Uber, and GrubHub.
Read 49 tweets
8 Mar
1/🧵

Imagine an exceptional healthcare SaaS company with…

-Revenue growth >30%
-Gross margin >90%
-Net margin >40%
-Return on assets (excl. cash) >100%
-Incredible operating leverage
-No debt

Let’s take a closer look at Semler Scientific $SMLR
2/🧵

My Finnish followers may recognize the company as I wrote about it earlier in Nov’20.

This is a retake on the company, now in English 🇬🇧
3/🧵

In 2015, $SMLR received FDA clearance for its only patented product, QuantaFlo, that saves significant time in testing for Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) to prevent potentially deadly strokes.

The test is faster, cheaper, and more accurate than incumbents.
Read 16 tweets
22 Feb
1/🧵

As unprecedented liquidity injections take place globally, talks of inflation are picking up.

In this thread, we'll take a look at why #INFLATION matters, especially if your investment thesis starts with “FED has my back whatever happens”

Best served with a cup of tea 🫖
2/🧵

Since the Financial Crisis, trillions have been injected into the economy to boost activity and growth.

Broader set of financial assets held principally by households (aka M2 Money Stock):

+ $12,000 BUSD since 2008
+ of which $4,000 BUSD from 2020

fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2
3/🧵

During the last 10 years or so, these liquidity injections have NOT caused rampant inflation as velocity of money has collapsed.

But few things changed with covid; a lot of funds have been given directly to individuals in form of stimulus checks.

fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V
Read 23 tweets
12 Feb
1/🧵

In today’s episode we’ll take a deeper look at INTANGIBLE COSTS; what they mean for companies, what are the trends, and how they are preferred by the tax code by using some well-known companies as examples.

Time for a thread 👇👇👇
2/🧵

Back in the day mills, factories, railroads, smelters, and other icons of 1800s industrial revolution required a lot of capital to be invested in TANGIBLE ASSETS – things you can touch.

The more you had equipment, the wealthier you became (think Andrew Carnegie).
3/🧵

In such environment, costs are expensed differently. Here’s what @FT / @mjmauboussin article had to say:

“Intangible investments are treated as an expense on the income statement. Tangible investments are recorded as assets on the balance sheet...."
ft.com/content/01ac1d…
Read 14 tweets
8 Feb
1/🧵

P/E and its variant CAPE (Cyclically Adjusted P/E) are popular metrics in predicting what future holds for stock markets. But there’s a better way.

In this thread I'll explain how INTEGRATED EQUITY works and what it is telling about today’s market.

Grab a cup of java!
2/🧵

I was originally introduced to “Integrated Equity” by a fantastic 2019 writing by OSAM’s @Jesse_Livermore, “The Earnings Mirage: Why Corporate Profits are Overstated and What It Means for Investors”.

This extensive 100-pager can be found at:
osam.com/pdfs/research/…
3/🧵

The core thesis is that reported book values are misleading due to inflation and share repurchases.

Firstly, book values are not revised over time with inflation.

Secondly, repurchases reduce company book value (see e.g. $SBUX, $AZO). Book value as is has its shortfalls. ImageImageImageImage
Read 9 tweets

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