2010: Does Buffett try to forecast the growth?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tanya Laneva (PH), Boston, Massachusetts. When you think about long-term cash flows, do you try to forecast growth? Or do you just think about certainty? If you have an indestructible company like Coca-Cola or Burlington Northern, do you try to estimate growth?

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we think — are you finished on that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, thank you.

WARREN BUFFETT: We — growth is part of the investment equation, and obviously, we love profitable growth. So we would love to figure out a way to, say, take a See’s Candy, to move it geographically into new areas, all kinds of things.

I mean, if we could find areas for growth with See’s, it would be likely to be very, very profitable.

If Coca-Cola, which is in 200 countries, I mean they have pursued that policy successfully now for 125 years. And some products travel way better than others.

But when we look at a business and we’re looking out in the future, obviously, if we see growth in that picture and it’s growth which is — produces a high return on incremental capital involved, we love it, but we do not rule out companies where we think there will be little or no growth, if the price is attractive relative to the earning power.

You know, there will be some growth, over time, in something like lubricants, you know, at Lubrizol, but it won’t be dramatic growth.

Would we love it if it, you know, if it were going to grow ten percent a year in units or something of the sort? Sure. But that’s not going to happen.

So it’s a factor in every investment decision because we’re really looking out to the future as to future earning power, but also future capital requirements.

And we think plenty about whether any business we go into is likely to grow profitably, and sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong. But we don’t rule out companies that have very slow growth or no-growth possibilities.

Charlie?

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, well, the interesting thing is that in our country, the business schools teach people to make these projections way in the future, and they program these computers to grind these projections out. And then they use them in their business decision making, et cetera, et cetera.

I’ve always regarded those projections as doing more harm than good. And Warren has never prepared one that I know of, and where an investment banker prepares one, we tend to throw them aside without reading them.

WARREN BUFFETT: We them upside down, actually.

CHARLIE MUNGER: What?

WARREN BUFFETT: We turn them upside down.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, yeah. And I think an enormous false precision gets into things when you program computers to make forward projections for a long period of time.

We make rough projections in our head all the time.

WARREN BUFFETT: Sure.

CHARLIE MUNGER: And we don’t do any of those formal projections, because the fact that they’re there on paper and came out of a computer makes some people think they must be significant. I really think they do more damage than they do good.

WARREN BUFFETT: When we bought Scott Fetzer, which was back in about 1985, it had been shopped by First Boston to more than 30 parties. They never got around to calling us.

So after shopping it to about 30 parties, Scott Fetzer, finally, was working on a deal with an ESOP after something else had fallen through, I forget the exact details.

And I sent a letter to Ralph Schey. I’d read about it in the paper. I’d never met him, never talked to the guy. But I sent him a letter.

I figured I’d gamble 21-cents, or whatever the first class rate was then, and I said, “We’ll pay $60 a share. If you like the idea, I’ll meet you in Chicago Sunday, and if you don’t like the idea tear up the letter.”

So that took place and Ralph met me, and we made the deal, and we paid the $60 a share or whatever it was.

And Charlie and I went back to sign up the deal, and the follow from First Boston was there, and he was a little abashed since he had not sent us — contacted us at all — when they were looking for something. But naturally he had a contract that called for a few million dollars of commission even though he’d not bothered to ever contact us and we made the deal by ourselves.

So, in a moment of exuberance while he was collecting his few million dollars, he said to Charlie, he said, “Well, we prepared this book in connection with Scott Fetzer, and since you’re paying us a couple million dollars and have gotten nothing so far,” he said, “maybe you would like to have this book.”

And Charlie, with his usual tact, said I’ll pay you $2 million if you don’t show me the book. (Laughter)

And I should mention, this will — in connection with Lubrizol, Dave Sokol met James Hambrick, I think on whatever it was, January 25, or whatever the date, and he — Lubrizol had already made projections publicly out to 2013.

And Dave told me that they had — they — that James had also given him some projections, I guess out to 2015 or something, and did I want to see them? And I told him no.

I mean, I don’t want to look at the other follow’s projections. I’ve never seen a projection from an investment banker that didn’t show the earnings going up over time, and believe me, the earnings don’t always go up over time.

So, it’s just — you know, it’s the old story: don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut, you know.

You do not want to ask an investment banker what he thinks the earnings are going to be in five years of something he’s trying to sell.

So I pay no attention to that sort of thing.

But we do, as Charlie says, we are doing projections in our head, obviously, when we look at a business. I mean, when we look at any company to buy, or any stock to buy, we are thinking in our mind, we’ve got a model in our mind, of what that place is likely to look like over some period of years. And then we also have some model in our mind of how far off we can be.

I mean there’s some things we can be way off on, there’s other things we’re likely to be in a fairly narrow range on.

So all that is taking place, but we sure don’t want to listen to anybody else’s projections.

CHARLIE MUNGER: Those of you about to enter business school, or who are there, I recommend you learn to do it our way, but at least until you’re out of school you have to pretend to do it their way. (Laughter and applause)