By John Lippert, Jeffrey McCracken and David de Jong Washington Post
Buffett ties
Warren Buffett, the world’s third-wealthiest person, is the biggest name on Trott’s prestigious list. The legendary 83-year-old investor has built his Berkshire Hathaway into the world’s fifth-most-valuable company. For at least a dozen years, Trott has been at the center of some of Buffett’s leading deals.
Since its founding by Will Thomson and Chip Russell in June 2016, the Massif Capital Real Asset Strategy has outperformed all of its real asset benchmarks. Since its inception, the long/short equity fund has returned 9% per annum net, compared to 6% for the Bloomberg Commodity Index, 3% for the 3 MSCI USA Infrastructure index Read More
The Buffett-Trott relationship blossomed while Byron Trott was at Goldman. In 2002, Henry Paulson, then Goldman’s CEO, was reorganizing the bank’s outreach to rich clients and tapped Trott as emissary to Buffett.
The billionaire soon praised the banker for helping Berkshire buy kitchenware, grocery and children’s-clothing companies.
“He understands Berkshire far better than any investment banker with whom we have talked and — it hurts me to say this — earns his fees,” Buffett wrote in his shareholder letter for 2003.
Trott helped enlist Buffett in 2008 in the effort to extract Goldman from a potentially fatal crisis. As markets cratered that fall, Goldman wanted