Earlier in May,
There are well over a dozen Berkshire-like stocks that trade on public stock markets every day, often with little fanfare. These 'wannabe Buffetts' span markets as far flung as cable and media, hotels, hamburgers and energy, in addition to Berkshire-type businesses such as insurance, railroads and industrials. But they all share attributes that Buffett champions: Leadership that owns or controls a significant piece of company, a record of winning investments, a desire to grow their respective businesses over the long-term through acquisitions and organic spending, and a savvy use of corporate purse strings to finance expansion.
While some Buffett wannabees on Forbes' list operate like Berkshire, using insurance float to fund investment in disparate business lines and publicly-traded securities, others are more specialized than the 'Oracle of Omaha' and focused on niche markets where they have a narrow expertise. A handful of Wall Streeters who once might have been deemed 'corporate raiders' or buyout kingpins, meanwhile, are beginning to display their Buffett stripes.
Markel Corporation
If the strategy is similar, so is the out-performance. Markel shares have returned 127% over the past 10-years, slightly below Berkshire's 160% gain, but a healthy outperformance of the S&P 500's 81% gain.
Liberty Media and John Malone
Warren Buffett may go down as the greatest-ever stockpicker, but
Malone built up Tele-Communications Incorporated over the span of about 25 years before dishing it off to
It might take a good investment banker a few hours to accurately plot out the total return of Malone's business interests assembled through acquisitions, spinoffs and JV's -- this 16-page, 4,000-word document titled 'Liberty Media Stock Cost Basis' is a good starting point - but Malone's mother ship, Liberty Media, has returned 28.8% since January 2013 when it spun off Starz.
Howard Hughes
Bill Ackman, one of Wall Street's most creative and controversial hedge fund investors, is beginning to look less and less like a fast-trading hedge fund manager more and more like a Warren Buffett-styled builder of businesses who also is content to sit on investments over many years. In 2014, Ackman took a Buffett-like plunge, selling a piece of his general partnership, Pershing Square Holdings, on European stock markets as a closed-end fund and creating a base of capital to make investments that "compound over a high rate of return over a long period of time."
With the permanent capital, Ackman and Pershing Square are increasingly focused on playing a role in building businesses like Canadian Pacific,
Forbes' May 25 Cover Story profiled The Howard Hughes Corporation, an unheralded real estate developer Ackman created from the carcass of
Since being spun in Nov. 2010, Howard Hughes shares have gained over 260%, more than tripling the return of the S&P 500.
The Would-Be Buffett Wannabes
Of course Buffett, the world's third richest man according to Forbes' 2015 Billionaires List, and $360 billion market-cap Berkshire Hathaway have attracted many copycats, and not all have lived up to the hype. For instance, Forbes recently chronicled the struggles of 'world-be Buffett wannabe' Sardar Biglari, chairman and CEO of NYSE-listed Biglari Holdings (ticker: BH). While Biglari makes every effort to resemble Buffett -- his website, annual meeting and shareholder letters are formatted in the Berkshire style -- the results have been decidedly sub par.
Biglari took control of burger chain Steak n Shake, helping to revive the company during the Great Recession. However, performance has fallen by the wayside as he's tried to build a conglomerate. In May, Biglari Holdings reported it second consecutive operating loss and its shares are off 11% year-to-date - with losses accelerating after the company narrowly won a bitter proxy fight. The only person making money off of Biglari is its CEO, who's taken over $75 million in compensation in recent years, despite poor performance.
Not all wannabe Buffett's are worth investing in.