A decade and a half ago, former FirstRand chairman Laurie Dippenaar urged me to join the growing group of South Africans who travelled to Omaha in late April to experience the world’s best attended AGM.
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Laurie also urged me to make the trip to Berkshire Hathaway’s AGM soon. His logic was sound: with chairman Warren Buffett (75) and vice chairman his Charlie Munger in his early 80s, “they won’t be around forever, you know.”
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Thankfully, the Berkshire duo have surpassed all expectations and continued their double act until this year when Charlie, now 96, gave the virtual AGM a miss.
I’ll always be grateful for the introduction to these protagonists of the morality-based capitalism Adam Smith envisaged in his Wealth of Nations almost 250 years ago. Through their humility, common sense, independence and clarity of thought, Buffett and Munger have had a greater impact on the investment world than anyone since Smith himself.
Warren turned 90 yesterday. Happy birthday Oracle. My commitment in honour of this milestone: I’ll revisit the book I wrote about him in 2016. So look out for an updated version of How to Invest like Warren Buffett. Hopefully ready for the Christmas stockings. But most definitely before Berkshire’s next AGM.
