Very early in the life of the company they have undertaken some pretty dishonest accounting of their revenues, net retention and other key metrics. The CFO resigned after the first reporting quarter.
I have a strong feeling there is more to this character than just the recycling of virtue filled business models.
Just for my own edification, is the suggestion here that a reverse takeover is inherently dishonest? I'm asking out of genuine ignorance.
I read up on reverse mergers a while ago and couldn't get a read one way or the other - felt kinda similar to a direct listing (which I understand even less). Anecdotally, the company that was considering doing it seemed suss af.
I figure that any acquirer who wants to go this route needs to basically be ready to pay in cash? Tying to finance a deal through debt (LBO or otherwise) would mean that you need to be prepared to do precisely the sort of DD bemoaned here?
Just trying to think through, “if it is so obvious, why isn’t everybody doing it?”
Another possible contributing factor: Famous firms like BH are able to use their notoriety to access reliable and valuable information (e.g. “is the management team any good?”). I’m sure a lot of people would love to wow Buffett with their astute insights into great values in their industry. (In the same way that a famous VC might be inundated with emails about the next hot thing.) You’d still have to work through a lot of chaff to find patterns. At least you’d have the raw material to find patterns, though.
The initial Tiny deal that was discussed relied heavily on the investor’s personal knowledge of the firm’s operators. This is similar in that it is an information asymmetry story.
A counterexample to this is the relatively early National Indemnity deal cited by the author in the opening of the piece. If Tiny is, indeed, recognizing outsized returns then that would also count against the importance of this factor.
I think this weights more then simply making it easy though having cash ready does make it easy.
What seems to be most consistent is having a motivated buyer and a motivated seller, and then it seems like it's just the parties involved making some compromise so that both make a good deal.
If both stand to win, I don't think just because BH gets a discounted price that makes it any less attractive: owners might just want to cash out and see seize the opportunity. If the owner doesn't want to sell you could even pay above market values and probably they won't part with it.
If the genius business model relies on trusting people because "we have tons of mutual friends" then its just friends of friends investing in each other. That is not even slightly comparable to Berkshire Hathway and shows a stunning level of naivety.
The typical process requires due diligence because there is no trust - there are a huge amount of dodgy businesses, sketchy owners and smooth talkers trying to extract cash from investors.
This model might work for a few years but inevitably requires moving further out of the trust network where deeper and further due diligence is required. Or, its not done and every deal will get worse quality and expose them to more risk.
If it is naive the LPs signed off and agree with the strategy.
If it’s not, it differentiates them from competitors. Until you’ve received a 35 page word document from a big public company with bullet point questions (their “standard” catch all set) it’s hard to describe the sheer pain of certain diligence; it can take a team of 6-8 people up to 2-3 weeks to turn something (depending how much you prepared by predicting requests and prepopulating the answers into data room before).
Having worked in financial services, my intuition suggests they are correct. For example once on a buy side engagement helping a client find and acquire bolt-ons (outsourced Corp dev essentially), ran across a company where something didn’t feel right. Did exactly what the Tiny guys did: looked at the bank statements and credit card info and built my own set of financials from scratch in roughly a day. It’s doable.
Now… also had the opposite happen and found some really eyebrow raising stuff over the years. Probably more often than not at least something borderline material shows up if you dig deep and far back enough. The partner at large fund once told me: “No deal is perfect; if you waited for the perfect company you’d never invest.”
The investing thesis can probably be boiled down to: most companies are run as they say they are (honestly), a few companies are unknowingly run poorly (inaptitude), and a very few are run fraudulently (wilfull deception).
The due diligence process is designed to ensure the last one is ferreted out.
If you believe you can find other signals to identify and avoid those companies, then why still conduct it (aka the most painful part of the process)?
Honest companies are not an issue, and inept companies can be recognized through a less disruptive audit.
> The due diligence process is designed to ensure the last one is ferreted out.
That's the stated purpose, yes, but the author implies the due diligence process is made to be intentionally painful and drawn-out to gain leverage over the acquisition target, and to dig up dirt in the company. At the end of the process, the new leverage and new dirt is used to try to aggressively re-negotiate the deal. Most companies don't cave to this, so most deals don't go through.
Presumably, this guy short circuits the process by just low-balling right off the bat then moving on if they don't accept, which saves both parties time and money.
Maybe it comes out like 3 deals the BH way where one gets bad, versus 1 deal with the standard due diligence? Of course that won't work on naivete alone. But using keen business (Buffett) and psychological (Munger) sense, why not?
For those interested, Barry Diller's IAC or Mark Leonard's Constellation Software might be better examples of a Berkshire of the Internet or Software, respectively.
I thought this framing by Andrew Wilkinson, of the "Berkshire Hathaway's way" for making (acquisition) decisions, is relevant in many things we do at work: can we make painful processes today easier for people, so they'll do it more? One area I can think of is suggesting new ideas for the product or technology stack. So while becoming a buyer of businesses is less relevant for most of us, there is plenty to learn in this post and the mindset Andrew is using to build Tiny. Can you think of any? What is painfully slow for you and your teammates now?
There is more to BH than how they acquire companies. They also have a track recored of out performing S&P for decades. I doubt if BH alpha is because of their streamlined acquisition process.
The whole idea that BH is a success due to good deals is wrong. BH has made good deals and bad deals, but that's not the main reason for their long term track record.
BH has a good record because they have structured their business to have a permanent edge: Their insurance&reinsurance business (half of the business) generates cash and float constantly. The side of the company seeks ways to invest all that cash. Often buying whole businesses.
In other words, BH cuts out several levels of middlemen. They are an insurance company, holding company, private equity & alternative investment management company and investment fund rolled into one. Cutting out banks, private equity, fund managers bring in huge savings.
The reason why BH has not been outperforming SP500 in the last 10 years is that cash is cheap for everyone (this is the longest boom in history) Once the water level drops again and we see who swims naked, BH will outperform again.
> The reason why BH has not been outperforming SP500 in the last 10 years is that cash is cheap for everyone (this is the longest boom in history) Once the water level drops again and we see who swims naked, BH will outperform again.
At the start of the tech companies’ boom, Buffett famously said he does not invest in tech companies because he does not invest in what he does not understand. Then he bought a ton of Apple a few years later, and that is basically the only thing keeping Berkshire stock in the game.
The last amazing deal I can recall that Berkshire made was Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis. Other than that, I think he might have been better off buying VOO. The company itself is 40% Apple right now, for which Berkshire paid full retail price when it was bought.
I think the parameters of the game that used to allow Buffett to achieve exceptional results have long changed, as evidenced by the numbers.
Berkshire stores value when times are good, they makes exceptional deals when there is crash and they can buy good stuff cheap. They always have cash and the don't have to sell assets to buy stuff.
Unless you think that there will be no financial crisis or severe recession again, Berkshire will probably shine again.
The author does not discuss how BH chooses which companies to target for acquisition. It's just not within the scope of this post. BH's success is because they choose their targets and the price wisely. Their higher closing rate is the multiplier that scales up the returns from their good targeting.
They don’t need a record because they’re not marketing to investors. If you want to sell your business, this is an advert. Sellers don’t need to worry about the buyer’s alpha.
Since this is from 2017, I assume this is the same Tiny I heard ads for on podcasts a few years ago? It sounded like a neat idea. How is it going for Tiny?
Exceptions to the rule. Precision Castparts, Burlington Northern, Clayton Homes, Duracell, Pacificorp, Lubrizol, Acme Brick, Dairy Queen, Pilot Flying J, all were bought as healthy companies.
+1. Warren and charlie also say that they would rather buy good businesses at fair price than fair businesses (or cash strapped ones or ones about to go bankrupt. I know thats not what fair means) at good price.
There’s also the consideration that a good, healthy business doesn’t want to be bought. The opportunity only presents itself if you are willing to massively overpay or if a good business runs into financial issues.
I worked for a Berkshire subsidiary before jumping into tech. First hand, it is zero bullshit that they invest in good management teams and let them run the business. The best run company I’ve ever worked at is one of these - Berkshire got ‘em when they were out of cash and almost about to fold, and they are overwhelmingly successful today with a stable management team with mostly internal succession. Having also worked at some startups that HN absolutely loves, it’s not that different than soaking up VC cash - it’s still outside money, and you still need a great leadership team to get to profitability.
John Oliver doesn't approve of certain aspects in their business model, but when Clayton was acquired in 2003, it was a healthy company and has grown massively since.
Scamming people isn't a business model. Everyone makes mistakes and I think this is a miss for Warren. That doesn't mean Clayton can't turn it around. Maybe Warren sees something Oliver didn't. It just doesn't look to be on the up and up when put to scrutiny.
>He even bought into Berkshire Hathaway itself, on the cheap
This is incorrect. He bought it and wanted to sell it back because of how bad the company was...but they tried to "steal" a small portion of the agreed upon price.
Buffet than went ahead and bought up shares and fired the guy who tried to short change him.
Very early in the life of the company they have undertaken some pretty dishonest accounting of their revenues, net retention and other key metrics. The CFO resigned after the first reporting quarter.
I have a strong feeling there is more to this character than just the recycling of virtue filled business models.
Buyer (seller) beware.