Management Style
Buffett has told managers that they can communicate with him as much or as little as they want about most matters, and should contact him if they’re contemplating “unusually large capital expenditures or acquisitions.” The billionaire has quipped that he and Berkshire Vice Chairman Charles Munger “delegate almost to the point of abdication.”
Buffett is a sounding board for CEOs of the operating business, helping to hone and improve their ideas, said Eitan Wertheimer, whose family sold 80 percent of Iscar to Berkshire in 2006 for $4 billion. Buffett’s firm said this month that it reached a deal to buy the remainder for $2.05 billion.
“Warren’s not a manager,” Wertheimer said. “He’s a teacher for all of us.”
Victor Mancinelli, who has expanded Berkshire’s farm- products company, CTB Inc., through acquisitions, said that he typically approaches Buffett when an idea for a deal “picks up steam.” The billionaire is usually able to grasp right away whether a transaction makes sense, helping CTB act fast.
“He’s so quick and he understands business so well that what could take hours or days for someone else” takes him minutes, Mancinelli said. “When things come together just correctly, we pounce.”