Alice's report should be required reading for anyone trying to seriously value Berkshire. It shows how conservative the old Two Column method is and even more contemporary sum of the parts valuations. "If I were offered $7Bil for $7 Bil of float and DID NOT have to pay tax on the gain, but would thereafter have to stay out of the insurance business forever- a perpetual non compete- would I accept that? The answer is NO." WEB 1996 A.M...He said this because the float will grow and this was before we had such a long record of getting $171 B of float at less than zero cost. So, using the cash and equities as a proxy for the value of the insurance businesses is conservative to the point of gross under valuation... in my opinion at least