Friday, September 7, 2007

Brand, growth, management, liquidity, value - the Buffett test

Celebrity weddings can be million-dollar affairs these days, but when renowned investor Warren Buffett married last year, he did so in a small ceremony involving only himself, his new bride, and two guests, according to The New York Times. The wedding was followed not by a privately catered feast, but instead by dinner for the quartet at Bonefish Grill, a seafood restaurant chain where you can get a center-cut filet mignon for less than $20.

Buffett's lifestyle may not brim with the glamour and excitement you'd expect of one of the world's wealthiest men -- his primary residence remains the gray stucco Nebraska home he purchased for $31,500 nearly 50 years ago, according to Forbes -- but his resume and investment portfolio are enough to make anyone's heart skip a beat. Five decades after starting his first job, Buffett has amassed a $44 billion fortune through his stock market expertise. His firm, Berkshire Hathaway, a holding company that owns such corporate giants as Geico and Fruit of the Loom and has sizable stakes in the likes of Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, and American Express, averaged a 24 percent annual return over a 32-year period, one of the greatest stock market runs ever.

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