Maybe Greg just didn't understand it as well. Maybe Tod was the only one who felt good about it and he was leaving.
...
I thought it was sold simply because they wanted to get rid of all the "Todd Combs" trades.

Those thoughts might have some merit. I was always struck by how all of the positions of Mr Simpson were blown out when he retired, despite his well known reputation and Mr Buffett's effusive praise on that front.

I don't think it's because there was anything wrong with the positions, nor any reason to believe that they weren't good holdings, nor a naive "not invented here" syndrome. Rather, if you're managing a portfolio, you just don't want positions in it that you yourself don't know to the depth necessary to allocate money to them. Which is a pretty high hurdle at head office.

As an aside...
It would be an interesting exercise to look at how all those positions did relative to the average S&P 500 firm in the 2-3-4 years after they were sold. I bet it wasn't bad.

l that being said, I *still* would like to know if the minimum tax rule was an impetus, or additional impetus, for the big string of liquidations. Has anyone tried the arithmetic to see whether Berkshire was facing a liability under that rule?

Jim