Sears Holdings Corp., which will exit bankruptcy after its $5.2 billion acquisition by Eddie Lampert’s ESL Investments, proved that some tasks are too hard, according to Munger.
“If you take on the job that’s impossible to do, you’re going fail at it,” he said. “That’s the lesson.”
Investment Environment
Berkshire loosened its share-buyback policy last year and repurchased $928 million of stock in the third quarter. Munger said the company tweaked the policy due to rising levels of cash and the lack of opportunities to deploy it.
“We’ve had a long drought in terms of buying a big company and we don’t like it,” Munger said. “But if we have to go through a much longer drought, we can handle it.”
He cautioned that there might not be a “wonderful, quick end to the investment difficulties of the current age.”
Health Care
Berkshire teamed up with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Amazon.com Inc. for a health-care venture, a task that Munger says is probably the hardest one on the agenda.
“I don’t know how it’ll work out,” he said. “There’s a lot of vested interests in that field who are probably from the status quo and it’s not going to be easy fixing anything.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.