I don't think Greg is going to be able to invest much more than his cashflow going forward over 20 years and I expect that much of that will go into BRK share repurchases between 1.3 and 1.5x P/BV. I hope that he can even invest all of his cashflow over 5, 10 and 20 years. I think our most likely good outcome is that in 7-9 years Berkshire doubles its market cap and can keep its cash at $400B in cash. The would be relatively better for a $2T market cap company than it does for a $1T one. But what will the ROIC of buying BRK at 1.4x BV be?

Slow, steady, boring growth might cause benign P/BV and P/E multiples and allow for significant buybacks. I hope that is the worst case and I think that will have a good outcome of 8-12% EPS growth. And maybe Greg finds 1 elephant or a couple rhinos in his 20 years at the helm. Those outcomes typically just cause more cashflow problems and how many elephants are going to be GREAT investments?

I think Berkshire is too well followed to give us Teledyn-like super-cheap buyback opportunities and returns but they should work out pretty well if people lose favor with it. A worse case might be that BRK just gets more and more expensive while its cash pile grows and grows with nowhere to go. It's hard to sit in an over-priced stock with limited opportunities and a dividend will not be tax friendly.

I'd be fine with 20 years of cashflow buybacks at 1.4xBV with modest growth of the core businesses. Just don't be stupid with the $400B or the cashflow, Greg.

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

---

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.