David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah. This General Reinsurance purchased by far their largest acquisition ever. Yup. It is the elephant gun hunting phase of Warren’s acquisition career. Yeah, it's literally the largest deal Berkshire’s ever done by a factor of 10, and he does it with all stock, not a dollar of cash goes out the door. He trades 20% of Berkshire's market cap for Gen Re. Spoiler alert, it does not go well. Famously, when Charlie is asked about the deal when it gets announced, Charlie is like the bluntest character as we have seen and as we will see at the end of this episode. Charlie's response to the deal when asked about it is that Warren only called him quote, “Very late in the game on this one.” He's just kind of like I'm washing my hands off this. I think if there's one lesson in this series among many it is that if Charlie Munger is your business partner you should probably always call Charlie early in the game, and not late in the game, see Sullivan Brothers. What was the really alluring thing about buying Gen Re? Because it massively multiplied the amount of float at their disposal by buying.…

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