Excerpts from Berkshire AGM 2017 by Mr. Bajaj

Every field demands a keen inclination towards being up to date with the actions, recent affairs and activities happening around. Also, a vision to go beyond and learn to understand more. With the same thoughts, the leader and founder of Cedrus, Mr. Nilesh Bajaj, had recently attended  Berkshire’s annual meeting to enrich and gain knowledge from business stalwarts. This determination and perseverance to know more has been the reason that has taken Cedrus Wealth Partners to such heights.

Mr. Bajaj recently attended Berkshire’s annual meeting 2017 on 5th May at Omaha where he had the opportunity to listen to the acclaimed American business magnate Mr. Warren Buffett and American businessman Charlie Munger. Mr Buffett controls the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate and Mr. Munger is the vice chairperson.

Mr. Buffett needs no more introduction and his wisdom needs no more mentioning. Yet, the words he spoke and the knowledge he imparted to the attendees were found very intimidating by Mr. Bajaj.

Here are some of the key snippets from the speech of Mr. Warren Buffett in the day long event at Berkshire AGM:

• On Self Driving Vehicles: Would be destructive and would hurt Berkshire’s insurance business
• On his successor: His successor should be willing to take a modest compensation as he would be already rich by then.
• Failed investment in Wells Fargo: “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure and an ounce of timely cure is better than a pound of delayed cure”
• On Trump’s plan to cut corporate tax rates to 15%: Would be a boost to Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. “The deferred taxes that are applicable to unrealized gains on securities would all be applicable to us as we have $90 or $95 billion in gains,

• Also, the stock market’s casino-like characteristic can be agonizing for investors but Hedge fund-style compensation in any other field would ‘blow your mind’!

Buffet highlighted his investment philosophy and he identifies companies where:

• The business has a 5-10-15 year’s visibility.
• Lasting competitive advantage
• Trusted management aligned with the Berkshire culture.
• Available at the right price.

He said Berkshire Hathaway has historically shied away from investing in technology stocks, though it has invested in IBM and Apple. In fact, he said, he has told his wife to invest the all the funds in S&P 500 index funds after him as she didn’t understand investing and was not a professional. He thanked John Bogle on his contribution to passive funds and saving billions of dollars on fees of American investors.

Mr. Charlie Munger also spoke about investments and stock market. He said, he thinks stock market investors might find better investment opportunities overseas right now. And also that he thinks the Chinese stock market is cheaper than the American stock market and that China has a bright future. But, there will be growing pains of course.”

Charlie Munger added that they avoided tech stocks in the past because they felt they had “no advantage where other people did.” He added that he thought they were “probably smart enough” to figure out Google, though.

Warren Buffet at 86 with an amazing track record is yet flexible in his views as John Keynes once stated, “When the facts change, I change mind. What do you do Sir?”

The Berkshire AGM 2017 opened and enriched many facets of investment and finance sector, adding to the existing knowledge of Cedrus. This will help Cedrus serve better to the clients with new set of direction and thoughts!