so warren's initial integrity vetting poor and\or he wanted the deal anyway?
somehow it still escaped him all the way until tranche 3?
2toTango.


There are multiple possibilities.

-he thought the Haslams were not so bad (they seemed like fraudsters to me, but Buffett has clearly looked into the history of their dealings more closely than I have so he may be right; in retrospect, I think I was right and he was wrong; see Tranche 2)
-he suspected they were fraudsters but he figured he could escape the consequences (maybe he didn't think they would go as far in ripping him off in Tranche 2 as they did, actually paying managers to cook the books)
-he has a blind spot or 2 in his integrity vetting for people he personally likes
-he doesn't like having so much cash accumulating, and convinces himself that this big $10b deal will be ok despite some misgivings

None of these are mutually exclusive, it can also be a mixture.

dtb