David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Or even if it is, I think we're conflating two things here a little bit. I think Berkshire does make sure they get a great deal when they buy a family-owned business outright. They’re going to buy low. But they either just believe that the business has so much future upside in it that they're willing to meet in the middle on price, or they are very good at identifying managers who have a splinter in their mind to continue to do the work. They're very good at this shrewdly evaluating, even if this person no longer holds a single share of their company, they’re going to show up for work every day because this is their life's mission and purpose. I don't think that's what was going on in the Wesco Financial situation. But I think when they buy these family-owned businesses, there's a lot of that in the evaluation of the business. They definitely compensate those managers well for their continued performance. I think that was part of it here too because it's almost like this is part of the upfront compensation is the price that they're going to pay for the company. This whole thing sucks though. This is like a multi-year drawn out thing with the SEC. It's hard for them to get on with their business and every other facet because they have this thing going on.…

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