加载中…巴菲特本周五和8所大学的学生对话并共进午餐
(2011-10-18 21:37:44)
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Edward Neville Isdell helped Coca-Cola Co. rebuild its worldwide brand name and restore its financial strength during his five years in office.
Warren Watch: Pro bono deal with Buffett didn't last long
By Steve
Jordon
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111023/MONEY/707179973
Edward Neville Isdell, a native of Northern Ireland, retired after a 35-year career with Coca-Cola Co. but came out of retirement in June 2004 to accept the job of chairman and CEO. He showed up at his desk in Atlanta a week early, even before his pay period began.
In his new biography, "Inside Coca-Cola," co-written with David Beasley, Isdell remembers sitting down at his desk in Atlanta on his first day as CEO and phoning Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and a member of Coke's board of directors. "I am working for the Coca-Cola Co. pro bono," he told Buffett.
"I think that's a very good arrangement," Buffett responded. "Why don't we keep it that way?"
But by 2007, Isdell was making $21 million a year, helping the company rebuild its worldwide brand name and restore its financial strength during his five years in office.
In the book (St. Martin's Press, 254 pages, $25.99) he recounted a Buffett rule in tennis, which also may apply to business dealings that come close to being unethical: "If it's on the line, it's out."
Later that year Isdell told the board of directors that he planned to spend $400 million a year on advertising, asking the board to be patient until the results showed up despite investors' negative reaction to the increased spending. The board backed the plan, he wrote, with Buffett saying, "I bought into this company because I believed in the brand Coca-Cola. If this is good for Coca-Cola, then I'm fine with it."
Student session
Buffett played host Friday to about 160 students from eight universities, part of his long-standing effort to talk with students about business and any other topic they care to bring up in off-the-record question-and-answer sessions.
Last week's batch was from Boston College, Villanova University, the University of Kansas, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Brigham Young University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Dayton (Ohio) and George Mason University.
The Dayton students had invited Buffett to a Global Students Investment Forum. Buffett declined but invited them to Omaha instead. The Dayton finance and accounting students help manage a $14 million endowment through the university's Davis Center for Portfolio Management.
Each university was allotted eight questions, the Dayton Daily News reported, and each delegation was required to include at least seven women.
$170,000 a share?
At a mere $109,000 per share, money manager Whitney Tilson viewed Berkshire Hathaway's stock price as the "cheapest we've ever seen it," Bloomberg reported, so his investment fund has been buying shares.
He told a value investing conference in New York City that the price for the Omaha-based company may rise to $170,000 and that the stock buyback program announced this fall protects against a price decline. For Class B shares, that would be an increase from the current $72 to $113.
In June, Tilson had estimated Berkshire's value at $167,000 per Class A share, $111 for Class B.
Tax policies and the rich
Buffett isn't the first wealthy person to become part of a tax debate.
Forbes magazine writer Janet Novack recounted a list of rich Americans who, like Buffett, found themselves embroiled in tax policy proposals, such as President Barack Obama's proposal of the "Buffett Rule" for ensuring that high-income people pay a fair tax.
When President Lyndon Johnson backed the alternative minimum tax in 1969, it mentioned that auto company widow Mrs. Horace Dodge had paid no income tax on $1.5 million in income because she had invested in tax-exempt government bonds.
In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt's Treasury secretary, seeking to close tax loopholes, cited tax-avoidance efforts by industrialist John D. Rockefeller; Merrill Lynch founders Charles E. Merrill and Edwin C. Lynch; electrical pioneer George Westinghouse Jr.; publisher William Randolph Hearst; General Motors President Alfred P. Sloan; and Amoco founder Louis Blaustein.
Buffett told CNN interviewer Poppy Harlow recently that his views on issues such as taxation are more in the open now than 20 years ago, but that's partly because people are paying more attention when he says something.
"I don't think when you become a business leader that you put your views on the world in a blind trust," Buffett said. "I was president of the Young Republicans Club at the University of Pennsylvania when I was 17 or 18. I was on a national radio program called 'Youth Wants to Know' on CBS when I was 15."
He said he grew up in a family where "public policy ... belongs to the public, and if you're a citizen and you think you have something to say, there's nothing wrong with saying it."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com
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http://www.flyernews.com/articles/id/7047
Along with meeting and having lunch with Buffett, the students will tour his Omaha, Neb., operations, and be able to ask him questions about his success, according to the press release.
The operations students will tour include subsidiaries of Buffett's Berkshire Hathway business, said Kate Morgan, a senior finance major who is attending the event.
Buffett started building his $39 billion fortune in 1965 when he "took over" the Berkshire Hathaway textile firm, through which he has invested in "banks, insurance, railroads and restaurants," according to his profile on the Forbes magazine website.
The university will pay for the students to attend the event, according to John Rapp, chair of the department of economics and finance, and director of the Davis Center.
"I'm very thrilled for them," Rapp said. "It's very prestigious ... they will be getting insights and viewpoints from the third-richest man in the world."
Over 40 students from different majors learn about investment through the Davis Center by managing over $9 million in the university's endowment in equity and fixed income markets, according to its website.
Buffett invited the UD students after declining a request to speak at last March's R.I.S.E. XI Global Student Investment Forum, according to the press release.
"He [Buffett] replied with a letter very soon after [the invitation] informing me that he did not like to do appearances such as that, but that we would be invited to come see him at one of his Q-and-A sessions," said Kelsey Stroble, a senior finance and accounting major who is attending the event.
R.I.S.E., an acronym for Redefining Investment Strategy Education, is an investment conference UD holds yearly in conjunction with the United Nations Global Compact, according to its website. The event hosts financial professionals and experts to discuss global investment on UD's campus, the website said.
The U.N. Global Compact is an organization which works to provide businesses strategies for worldwide economic and social betterment, according to its website.
Rapp said there was an interesting story behind the invitations with Buffett.
In the invitation sent to Buffett to speak at March's R.I.S.E. event, a UD tie was sent along too in hope that he could wear it if he chose to accept the invitation, Stroble said.
"In the reply letter, he said he would wear it [the UD tie] to the Q-and-A session so we are going to keep a look out for that," Stroble said.
Seven other universities will also attend the event later this week, Stroble said. Boston College, Villanova University, the University of Kansas, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Brigham Young University, the University of Nebraska - Lincoln and George Mason University will all each send 20 students, she said.
Rapp said every school will have the opportunity to ask Buffett eight questions. Buffet said he does not want to know what questions he will be asked at the session, Rapp said.
Stroble said she is excited to meet with Buffett because of his reputation.
"Mr. Buffett is a man who has a very large impact on the financial world and the economy as a whole," Stroble said. "To be given the opportunity to hear him speak and to interact with him is a very big honor. He is very dedicated to making an impact on the students in attendance and hopes to teach them as much as he can."
The participating UD students met Sunday, Oct. 16, to discuss what questions they want to ask Buffett, according to Stroble.
Stroble said the students wanted to devise their questions shortly before leaving for Omaha so they could ensure any queries they have about the economy are up-to-date with current events.
Buffett also requested each school to send at least seven women to the event, according to the press release.
The students who will be participating in the event are looking forward to meeting Buffett, Rapp said.
"I am extremely excited to meet Warren Buffet," Morgan said, "More than anything, Warren Buffet is a man that all people in this business admire for his strong moral character and smart investing. He is proof that you can do well in life without greed."
Other students said they think the invitation will help increase national prestige for UD and the Davis Center.
"This is an opportunity of a lifetime and a dream come true," said Anthony Caruso, a sophomore accounting and finance major who also will make the trip to meet Buffett. "For the Davis Center for Portfolio Management, to be invited to Warren Buffet's event is a great way to spread the word about our great school and center."
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