" Buffett’s performance hasn’t met the “moderately better than average” bar in recent years. While he is renowned for his acquisition skills, the past decade and a half of takeovers has been disappointing. Lubrizol’s earnings are no higher than when Berkshire bought the company for $9.7 billion in 2011, and Berkshire’s stake in Kraft Heinz—the successor to Heinz—is worth less than the $9 billion Berkshire put into the investment. Precision Castparts is now worth more than the $37 billion that Berkshire paid for it, but it has taken 10 years to get there, and almost any other aerospace-related investment would have done better—even Boeing. Berkshire’s $13 billion purchase of Pilot looks fair, not great, while the 2022 purchase of insurer Alleghany for under $12 billion is one of the few real winners. Overall, Berkshire would have done much better to put the $80 billion it plowed into the five buys into an S&P 500 index fund."