JOHANNESBURG — Some of the most interesting questions at the Berkshire AGM come from unusual quarters like 10 year old Brook who asked what was the most interesting or fun investment Warren and Charlie ever made. The responses are fascinating – and guaranteed to ensure you never again look at a game farming syndicate the same way. – Alec Hogg
*This is one of the highlights from the five hours of Q&A at the 2019 Berkshire Hathaway AGM in Omaha where chairman Warren Buffett and his deputy Charlie Munger field queries from shareholders.
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Outside of Berkshire Hathaway, what is the most interesting or fun personal investment you have ever made?
Well, they’re always more fun when you make a lot of money off of them. One time, I bought one share of stock at Atled and Atled had 98 shares outstanding, and I bought one. Not what you’d call a liquid security. Atled happened to be the word delta spelt backwards and 100 guys at St. Louis had each chipped in $50/$100 or something to form a duck club in Louisiana. They bought some land down there. There were 100 of them Two of them defaulted on their obligation to come up with $100 so there were 98 shares out. They went down to Louisiana and they shot some ducks but apparently, somebody shot quite a few shots into the ground, oil spurted out and those duck club shares. I think a couple of fields are still producing. This was about 40 years ago for $29,200 per share. It had that amount in cash and it was producing a lot. They sold it. If they’d kept it, that stock might have been worth $2m/$3m per share but they sold out to another oil company. That was certainly the most interesting thing. Actually, I didn’t have any cash at the time. I went down and borrowed the money from my wife and the law officer said, “Would you like to borrow some money to buy a shotgun as well?” Charlie, tell them about the one you missed.
Well, two investments come to mind. When I was young and poor, I spent $1000 once, buying oil where they paid me $100,000 per year for a great many years but I only did that once in a lifetime. On a later occasion, I bought a few shares of Oil Reach and it jumped 30 times rather quickly and I turned down five times as much as I bought. It was the dumbest decision of my whole life. So if any of you have ever made any dumb decisions, look up here and feel good about yourself.
