Larry Cunningham on Wisdom of Warren Buffett: When Investing, Know Your Price

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Among the many ways that Warren Buffett is unusual is his approach to the role of price in business acquisition negotiations. Other people commonly haggle over price. Tactics include sellers naming an asking price that is higher than warranted or buyers making a low-ball bid. Some people enjoy the give and take and many believe it is a way to produce value in exchange.

Larry Cunningham on Wisdom of Warren Buffett: When Investing, Know Your Price

Buffett eschews such exercises as a waste of time. One of Berkshire’s acquisition criteria (in addition to size, proven earnings power, quality management in place and relative simplicity of the business) is having a price. Eschewing the games so many negotiators like to play over ranges of values, Buffett wants a single price at which each side can say yes—or walk away. His bid is his bid; when he gives you a bid, what you have is what most people classify as the “best price,” “final offer,” or “highest bid.”

Buffett has repeatedly stated this policy, along with the other acquisition criteria, in every Berkshire Hathaway annual report since 1983. Yet I know many people who are skeptical about whether Buffett and Berkshire actually adhere to this policy—doesn’t he engage in price negotiations in at least some cases, they ask? Aren’t there situations in which the value of an exchange is not discovered other than through the dynamic of negotiations, including about appropriate methodology?

To answer that question, I examined the 16 Berkshire Hathaway acquisitions over the past two decades that involved public company targets. Unlike private company targets, those companies are required by U.S. federal law to publicly disclose the background of the transaction, including negotiation over all material terms, such as price.

By: beyondproxy

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