[Week 4 - 1968] Discussing A Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter Every Week

Full Text: https://theoraclesclassroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/1968-Berkshire-AR.pdf Key Passage: >Immediately after year end, we purchased all of the stock of Sun Newspapers, Inc. and Blacker Printing Company, Inc., which represents an initial entry into the publishing business. This purchase involved only a small portion of our funds available for acquisition. Sun Newspapers, Inc. publishes five weekly newspapers in the Omaha, Nebraska area, with paid circulation of about 50,000. A related printing business is conducted by Blacker Printing Company, Inc. This purchase, while small, has potential for future expansion. The operations will continue under the able management of Stanford Lipsey. Berkshire will end up holding Sun Newspapers until 2020, a 50+ year holding. It is also their first entry into news and publishing which is a business they remain in to this day. I wanted to stick to just picking one passage for the time being, but I will mention the passage on their insurance underwriting philosophy as well as stating they are considering getting into re-insurance almost ended up being my pick and is worth a read. Some things not in the letter but from The Snowball. In mid 1968 Buffet tried to sell Berkshire Hathaway To Charlie Munger and David Gottesman but they decided they didn't want it if he wanted to get rid of it. So instead he doubled down and bought more and more shares increasing his partnership's ownership of the company. He also began buying into Blue Chip Stamps with personal/partnership money which I will expand on a bit in the comments.