Wright - thank you for your post on the Lowenstein article. I think that it's important for value investors to be willing to explore the 'road not taken'.
I had to chuckle this AM because as I posted during December 1999, my January Effect vehicle was BRKb. In final frustration because BRKb had a 'painting the tape' bounce on 12/31, I bought WSC. All of this was predicated on exploiting Buffett and Munger's ability to spot value. I was guessing that WSC was about to be merged into BRK.
Now I see that WSC has sopped up their free cash by buying CBZ. Office furniture stocks such as Steelcase WERE discussed on this board, because they were looking cheap. No one ever thought out of the box enough to consider what the dotcom industry does to traditional industry. In the spirit of "Why didn't I think of that?", I realize that I have had personal experience with virtual companies that appear out of nowhere, grow very fast, merge, die, and reappear. An axiom in silicon valley is that doing business in a garage is fun history, but if you want to get VC funding, you need to inhabit some credible-looking space with partitions and 5-legged roll-about chairs. To buy it requires capital that's not available before IPO. CORT makes sense.
Who says Buffett doesn't understand technology?
Then I saw this on Yahoo: << some of the posts on the CORT message Board say it owns a company called HOMESTORE.com, which was featured in Forbes January 10. I can't tell much about this company, but one message says that CORT owned $18 million worth of HOMS when HOMS was $41.1 a share, and today HOMS is $81 a share. >>
Which may indicate that WSC is buying a Buffett-type stock that contains a hidden cigar butt.
Lau |
