w w w . t i c o n l i n e . c o m

BUFFETT CONFERENCE

First off, I'd like to say that John and Jerry organized a thoroughly enjoyable and top-rate event. The Buffett Conference was educational and entertaining.

My involvement in the actual conference began Thursday morning. At around 11am I received a call from Bob Miles (author of 101 Reasons to Own Berkshire Hathaway) who encouraged me to go to the press conference scheduled that day. I don't like being around the media and wasn't going to go to the press conference, but Bob thought it might be a good chance for me to meet all the authors. Reluctantly I agreed to go.

The press conference was to be held at the Sheradon Centre right beside City Hall at 2pm. The hotel staff initially misdirected me to the wrong room (the wrong floor for that matter). Thankfully they also misdirected Bob so I got to meet him early. Suprisingly, Bob has roots in Toronto (his uncle's grandfather played hockey in Toronto and won 4 Stanley Cups while playing on 4 different hockey teams early in the century). Bob is currently writing another book, apparently he has another 100 reasons to own Berkshire Hathaway. We all look forward to the next installment to his insightful first work.

By the time we got to the right room, there was already a small gathering of people. Conversation (and soft drinks, not always Coke products; sorry) flowed freely for the next hour. At around 3pm the press release started. After giving the panel a few questions the press yielded to a few Berkshire Hathaway shareholders in the crowd, who began asking fairly involved and non-trivial questions. I was thirsty so I went to find a drink.

After the press conference a bunch of us gathered in the hotel restaurant/bar for drinks at 6pm. I had a Coke and was then introduced to Janet Lowe's (author of Warren Buffett Speaks) husband, Austin. Austin is a retired engineer who worked primarily in the aerospace field for 40 years. I didn't expect to meet another engineer and found Austin's experience in the field to be tremendously interesting. For more than an hour we talked about everything from fuselage design, failure analysis and fracture propagation to project management and engineering design. We swapped stories of management gaffes and projects with brutal deadlines. Austin is a veritable fountain of engineering experience and common sense.

At around 8pm we all headed to a nearby seafood restaurant (I would have preferred Subway or Harveys, but I think John thought that would be inappropriate). Larry Cunningham (author of The Writings of Warren Buffett) and his assistant had to leave and couldn't join us for dinner.

At the dinner I was sitting between Mary Buffett's (author of Buffettology) assistant, Sabrina and Janet Lowe. Across from me were John Zemanovich and Andrew Kilpatrick (author of Of Permanent Value).

Andrew was a bit more reserved, but extremely polite. We talked about his experiences as a reporter and stockbroker. He's currently working on an updated version of his current book and we all look forward to its release. Janet Lowe and Andrew's wife, who were sitting across from one another, were getting along famously (sometimes at Austin's expense; which he took all in good fun). I have never read Janet's work, but finally found out why Andrew called Janet 'the anointed scribe' of Berkshire Hathaway - Janet has written 14 books and will soon be releasing Charlie Munger Speaks.

Timothy Vick didn't speak much. Although friendly and polite, my impression is that he is not entirely comfortable being in the spotlight. However, from the few words I had with him I found him to be extremely intelligent, possibly the most well versed in value investing that I have met.

Dinner finished at around 10:30pm and we all headed for bed - there was a conference to prepare for.

On the day of the conference, my colleague and I arrived late. It was raining and I was just too tired from the previous night's activities to wake up any earlier.

Janet Lowe talked about the influences of Ben Graham and Charlie Munger on the Warren Buffett's investment methodology. Unfortunately I missed her speech.

Timothy Vick talked about Warren Buffett's unconventional investments involving arbitrage.

Robert Miles was up next and he was the most entertaining speaker. At one point he mentioned that when he first looked at Berkshire Hathaway he described it as a 'brown paper bag' - a bag with unknown contents. He then produced a brown paper bag and asked for a volunteer. The volunteer was to close his eyes and reach into the bag and identify what he found. After the volunteer closed his eyes Robert said 'don't reach in the bag yet - wait until I kill it first'. After reaching into the bag and pulling out a Coke bottle, Robert asked him 'can you tell me, without peeking, what you found?' The participant responded 'this is obviously a Pepsi bottle'. The room erupted in laughter.

Another notable speaker was Michael Lee-Chin. Michael is a civil engineer turned businessman. He is the founder of AIC Mutual Funds, the first fund in Canada to completely embrace Berkshire's long-term approach to investing. Many of Michael's funds only hold 20-30 stocks and many of the issues haven't changed for the last decade. With $800 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock, AIC is also the largest Canadian holder of Berkshire stock. His Canadian and U.S. equity fund has produced returns that have been unsurpassed in the last decade. In my opinion, Michael Lee-Chin was one of the most impressive speakers. His delivery was extremely polished and his words were deliberate and beautifully crafted. Very impressive.

After Michael's talk, we all headed to another room for lunch. While eating, they played ABC's television interview of Warren Buffett's on the big screen. Many of the participants enjoyed Buffett's comment of 'marrying for money - a bad idea to begin with, but one that is especially ridiculous if you're already rich'. They also got a good laugh at Buffett's recorded performance of Daddy Warbucks.

Andrew Kilpatrick was up after lunch and he provided the audience with an overview of Warren's career. With the numerous adventures in the billionaire's life there was barely enough time to barely scratch the surface.

Mary Buffett and David Clark provided short and clear examples of buying quality businesses for the right price. Their talk was to-the-point and well crafted.

Larry Cunningham provided an overview of a wide variety of topics. He reminded me of a typical professor - as a student in university I would try my best to drink from the water-fountain of knowledge only to find that some professors were more like firehoses (trying to drink from a firehose doesn't quench your thirst very well, but you do get a lot of exposure to water). Larry is one such individual - extremely flamboyant and energetic, he moved quickly from topic to topic.

At 5pm the audience threw a number of questions to the panel of guests. John Zemanovich was fairly abrupt with his answers and Jerry said 'he's starting to sound like Charlie Munger'. This only encouraged John and soon answers such as 'I have no comment' and 'I have no more to add' were frequently heard. It was a fun time had by all.

Again, congratulations go out to John and Jerry for an event well done.

Cheers,
JimC