160301289-Warren-Buffett-Katharine-Graham-Letter__raw_ocr_output.txt

PENSIONS

There are two aspects of the pension cost problem upon which manage-
ment can have a significant impact: (1) maintaining rational control
over pension plan promises to employees and (2) increasing investment
returns on pension plan assets.

The Irreversible Nature of Pension Promises

fo control promises rationally, it is necessary to understand the
basic arithmetic and practical rules governing pension plans.

The first thing to recognize, with every pension benefit decision, is
that you almost certainly are playing for keeps and won't be able to
reverse your decision subsequently if it produces subnormal profitability.

As a practical matter, it is next to impossible to decrease pension
benefits in a large profitable company ~ or even a large marginal one.
The plan may embody Language unequivocally declaring the company's right
to terminate at any time and providing that contributions shall be
solely at the option of the company. But the law has eroded much of
the significance such "out" clauses were presumed to have, and operat-
ing practicalities render any residual rights to terminate moot,

So, rule number one regarding pension costs has to be to know what you
are getting into before signing up. Look before you leap. There prob-
ably is more managerial ignorance on pension costs than any other cost
item of remotely similar magnitude. And, as will becone so expensively
clear to citizens in future decades, there has been even greater
electorate ignorance of governmental pension costs. Actuarial thinking
simply is not intuitive to most minds. The lexicon is arcane, the
numbers seem unreal, and making promises never quite triggers the
visceral response evoked by writing a check.

In no other managerial area can such huge aggregate Liabilities - which
will be reflected in progressively increasing annual costs and cash
requirements - be created so quickly and with so little immediate fi-
naneial pain. Like pressroom labor practices, small errors will com-
pound. Care and caution are in order.

Deceptive Arithmetic of "Promise Now - Pay Later"

 

If you promise to pay me $500 per month for life, you have just ex-
pended - actuarially but, nevertheless, in a totally tangible sense -
about $65,000. If you are financially good fer such a lifetime promise,
you would be better off (if I have an average expectancy regarding longev-
ity for one my age) handing me a check for $50,000. But it wouldn't

feel the same.

~2-

And, if you promise to pay me 1,000 hamburgers a month for Life which,
superficially, may sound equivalent to the previous proposition
(assuming a present hamburger price of 50¢), you have created an obli-
gation which, in an inflationary world, becomes most difficult to

evaluate. This creates a risk we talk of later as an "earthquake risk".

One thing is certain. You won't find an insurance company willing to
take the 1,000-hamburgers-a-month obligation off your hands for
$65,000 - or even $130,000. While hamburgers equate to 50¢ now, the
promise to pay hamburgers in the future does not equate to the promise
to pay fifty-cent pieces in the future.

So, before plans are introduced or amended, the financial consequences
(particularly in a world of significant inflation which I believe to
be close to a certainty)* should be clearly understood by you. Con-
sulting actuaries are very good at making calculations. They are
frequently terrible at making the assumptions upon which the calcula-
tions are based. In fact, they well may be peculiarly ill-equipped

to make the most important assumptions if the world is one of economic
discontinuities. They are trained to be conventional. Their self-
interest in obtaining and retaining business would be ill-served if
they were to become more than mildly unconventional. And being con-
ventional on the crucial assumptions basically means accepting histor-
ical experience adjusted by a moderate nudge from current events.

This works fine in forecasting such factors as mortality and morbidity,
works reasonably well on items such as employee turnover, and can be

a disaster in estimating the two most important elements of the
pension cost equation, which are fund earnings and salary escalation.

Illustrated Elemental Actuarial Principles

To illustrate a few actuarial principles worth understanding, but
without employing the technical jargon and the asterisks, let's use
the example of your household. Assume that you, personally, make
irrevocable promises to pay pensions of $300 per month for life after
they reach 65 to, say, four household employees. To make it easy,
let's say that they each are 55 years of age at present. If you make
that promise today, you have reduced your net worth today by about

* , My views regarding inflationary possibilities are more extreme
than those of most respected observers. It is difficult to substan-
tiate a dogmatic view, since conclusions rest more upon social and
political judgments than upon economic training and analysis. You
should recognize the subjective nature of the reasoning leading to
my pessimistic conclusions regarding inflation over the longer

term - and not be reluctant to correct accordingly.

 

 

$70,000. (For simplicity's sake, I am ignoring some variables such
as sex of employees - women live longer and therefore cost more -
death before 65, ete. In calculating such factors the actuaries
shine.)

Why are you immediately $70,000 poorer? Well, if you set aside a
$70,000 fund now and invest it at 7% interest - and let all such int-
erest remain in the fund to be compounded - the principal value of
the fund will grow to about $140,000 in ten years when your employees
reach 65. And to buy them a Lifetime annuity of $3,600 per year will
then cost about $35,000 each, utilizing the entire accumulated cap-
ital of the fund. So if you make the promise and it is binding -
legally or morally - figure you have spent today $70,000, even though
you don't have to pay out a dime of cash for ten years.

Now take it one step further and assume that your employees each are
earning $600 per month but, instead of promising them $300 per month
upon retirement, you promise them 50% of their salary at the time
they retire. If their increases run 7.2% per year - and they prob-
ably will in the world I foresee - they will be earning $1,200 per
month by the time they reach 65. And it will now cost you $70,000
each to purchase annuities for them to fulfill your promise. The
actual cost, today, of modifying your promise from 50% of present pay
to 50% of terminal pay was to exactly double the fund that needed to
be set aside now from $70,000 to $140,000.

Many pension plans use final average pay (usually the average of the
last five years, or the highest consecutive five years in the last

ten years employed) and some use career average pay. I am not arguing
here which should be used, but am illustrating the dramatic difference
in costs that can occur because of rather minor-appearing changes in
wording.

Pension costs in a labor intensive business clearly can be of major
size and an important variable in the cost picture, particularly in

a world characterized by high rates of inflation. I emphasize the
latter factor to the point of redundancy because most managements I
know - and virtually all elected officials in the case of governmental
plans - simply never fully grasp the magnitude of liabilities they

are incurring by relatively painless current promises. In many cases
in the public area the bill in large part will be handed to the next
generation, to be paid by increased taxes or by accelerated use of

the printing press. But in a corporation the bill will have to be
paid out of current and future revenues - with interest - and frequently
with what is, in effect, a cost-of-living escalator.

 

-y

The "Earthquake Risk"

In Germany, in the great inflation of the early 1920s, the entire
Daimler Benz (Mercedes) Automobile Company was selling in the mar-

ket for the price of 300 motor cars. Almost all past investments

were nearly worthless, and current salary levels were astronomical

in relation to past history. Under such conditions, or conditions

far short of such an extreme, the burden of any pension benefits owed
by a business, which are based on current salary levels though related
to much earlier service in employment, must be backed almost exclus-
ively by the current value (earning power) of the business. Advance
funding simply evaporates.

For example, assume that salaries (and the cost of living) are moving
upward at 25% per year and the pension fund is earning 10% per

year ~ a set of assumptions not ridiculously different from what
exists in England at the moment. Under such conditions, funds put
aside for retirement immediately begin to shrink in relation to prom-
ised benefits. Every month fewer hamburgers can be purchased from
the funds contributed to the pension plan - even after accumulating
dividends and interest on the funds.

Almost no one chooses to think about this sort of "earthquake risk"

in dealing with pension plans, any more than people choose to spend
much time thinking about nuclear war. It may be my earlier-mentioned
bias, or my mathematical bent, but I believe some "unthinkable"
inflation-related calculations should be made - and even considered -
before any company assumes open-ended pension obligations guaranteeing
a large number of persons absolute protection against inflation by
gearing benefits without limit to final pay or escalating benefits

to persons already retired, based on changes in the cost of living.

Thus, the really devastating possibility regarding private pension
plans is sustained double-digit inflation. When salaries move ahead
at a substantially higher rate than investment returns and benefits
are tied to final salaries (or, even more expensively, cost-of-
living increases after retirement as in recent rubber and aluminum
contracts), it is virtually impossible to pre-fund obligations. Like
it or not, you become much like the Social Security Fund, absent the
power to tax. Should that occur, future purchasers of the products
of the company must be willing to do so at prices that reflect not
only the wages of current workers, but the promises to past workers.
Some businesses will have economic characteristics allowing them to
pass along these costs, but others will have major troubles. On
balance, I believe we are in relatively favorable businesses under

 

 

 

 

such circumstances. I do not believe this problem can be solved by
the investment process. I mention it for completeness, not because
I have answers - and to urge caution in making pension benefit prom-
ises subject to dramatic escalation through substantial attrition in
the purchasing power of money.

Now Let's look at funding and investment behavior appropriate to an
economic world at least reasonably similar to the past, recognizing
that such a world is far from a certainty.

The Investment Management Problem Inherent _in All Pension Plans

Once having committed to provide pensions, how do we pay? The Law
and prudent business practice mandate that we start putting aside
funds on a fairly orderly and consistent basis from which we can ful-
fill our promises. In this manner we pay the employee currently
while he is being productive for the company, and we simultaneously
set up a savings account (collectively, not individually) which will
accumulate at interest so as to purchase an annuity (not actually
"purchased" in most plans, of course, just assured by the pension
fund) for him at retirement which will discharge our promise to pay
him throughout his non-productive years. Thus, our current cost and
current cash requirements (if our estimates are accurate as to what we
will earn on the savings account as well as other estimates regarding
turnover, salary escalation, longevity, etc.) will reflect his total
Lifetime employment costs to us spread rather evenly over his produc-
tive years.

(This advance funding treatment, matching full current costs against
eurrent production, contrasts with the Social Security Plan's pro-
gram which essentially taxes current producers to pay current non-
producers. This simply means moving a portion of current national
output of goods and services over from those who produced it to those
who are non-producing, and to whom promises have been made. If such
a system had been in effect for a very long time, the demographic
profile remained fairly constant, the promises remained fairly constant,
and there was no inflation, the net effect from such a pay-as-you-go
approach would not substantially differ from an advance funding basis.
However, these conditions do not exist which may make for various
problems - including some that exacerbate inflation and thus have
negative fall-out for the economics of private plans.)

Because a business corporation, unlike the Federal government, has to
create a "savings account" - an investment accumulating and investment

-6-

management operation of some sort - to properly fund its pension
plan, it must make investment management decisions with respect to
pension plan assets.

The History of Corporate Pension Plan Management
Act One - The Awakening

A few decades ago pensions were a relatively new thing at most com-
panies, so that the "savings accounts" were in their formative

stages and therefore much smaller. Furthermore, promises were frac-
tions of those presently made, so that the amount eventually required
in the savings account to purchase the required annuity at retirement
was correspondingly smaller.

Thus the amounts paid into pension funds ("savings accounts") were
largely forgotten so far as managerial responsibility was concerned
until the great awakening of the 1960s. At that time managements
noticed:

(L) The funds had grown to the point where they sometimes were
25% to 50% of the net worth of the company - often making the
assets employed in the savings account larger than those em-
ployed in the company's largest division. Here are a few
figures which I have handy from year-end 1972:

(In Millions)

Company Corporate Net Worth Pension Fund Assets
A&P $ 599 $ 236
DuPont 3,268 1,817
Firestone 1,251 423
IBM 7,565 1,023
U. S. Steel 3,577 2,239

So, while U. S. Steel had a visible $3.6 billion in net oper-
ating assets which management probably spent 99% plus of their
business hours thinking about, they had $2.2 billion in the
hank", whose economic results would impact Future values for
the shareholders, dollar for dollar, with the economic results
of the steel assets. There literally were years when the sav-
ings account earned more than was earned out of all operating
assets of the steel business. (In fairness to U. S. Steel, it
should be mentioned that they were one of the pioneers in recog-
nizing the importance of pension assets - and have done a
better-than-average job through in-house management .)

-7-

(2) The returns actually realized on the "savings account"
had an enormous impact on costs. A sustained 1% change in
earning rate could easily swing the annual cost to the con-
tributing company by 15%.

(3) During a period when equities had produced fabulous re-
turns, many of the plans had been invested largely in

bonds - which not only bore Low fixed rates of 3% to 5% in the
earlier periods, but also had suffered significant shrinkages
in market values as interest rates increased secularly. (If
interest rates go up, bond prices must go down - and if the
bonds are long-term and the rates rise sharply, prices go

into a power dive.)

(4) Many managements thus saw their largest division earning
dismal rates of return with substantial market value shrinkage
in the bond component, while all around them high returns were
being realized from stocks with little apparent effort or
talent. If a company had $100 million invested in its engine
division earning 12% by managerial zeal and ingenuity, why
tolerate $100 million in its pension fund "division" poking
along at only 4% because of inattention - particularly when
increasing the $4 million to some larger figure would have the
same impact. in future earnings for owners as raising margins

on engines. Intensive effort on production, research and sales
might only produce an increase from 12% to 13% in the engine
area, since decisions already had been so near to optimal, but
it was easy to imagine 4% becoming 10% in the pension fund

area if just average results were attained in equity invest-
ment. And, of course, who would settle for being just average?

The History of Corporate Pension Plan Management

Act Two - The Great_Leap

And so the hunt was on. Wall Street abhors a commercial vacuum. If
the will to believe stirs within the customer, the merchandise will

be supplied - without warranty. When franchise companies are wanted
by investors, franchise companies will be Found - and recommended by
the underwriters. If there are none to be found, they will be

created. Similarly, if above-average investment performance is sought,
it will be promised in abundance ~ and at Least the illusion will be
produced.

 

Initially those who know better will resist promising the impossible.
As the clientele first begins to drain away, advisors will argue the un-
soundness of the new trend and the strengths of the old methods. But

 

-~8-

when the trickle gives signs of turning into a flood, business
Darwinism will prevail and most organizations will adapt. This is
what happened in the money management field.

The banks had traditionally been the major money managers (Leaving
aside insured plans) and, by and large, their investing as well as
their communication had been lackluster. They felt obliged to seek
improvement, or at least the appearance of improvement, as corporate
managers searched for yardsticks by which to make their decisions as
to whom care of this newly discovered giant "division" should be
granted, The corporate managers naturally Looked for groups with im-
pressive organizational charts, lots of young talent, hungry but
appropriately conscious of responsibility, (heavy on MBAs from good
schools), a capacity for speed in decision making and action - in
short, organizations that looked something like they perceived them-
selves. And they looked for a record of recent performance.

Unfortunately, they found both.

A little thought, of course, would convince anyone that the com-
posite area of professionally managed money can’t perform above
average. It simply is too Large a portion of the entire investment
universe. Estimates are that now about 70% of stock market trading is
accounted for by professionally managed money. Any thought that 70%
of the environment is going to substantially out-perform the total
environment is analagous to the fellow sitting down with his friends
at the poker table and announcing: "Well, fellows, if we all play
carefully tonight, we all should be able to win a little."*.

So, clearly the almost universal expectations of above-average per-
formance in pension fund management were doomed to disappointment.
These disappointments were certain to be amplified by a corollary
affliction that frequently accompanies pressure for investment per-
formance - higher turnover rates. It is difficult to measure turnover

* - An interesting example of this line of thinking (sub-species:
wishful) occurs in the April, 1975, Conference Board "Trends in Pension
Fund Administration” article which Marty sent me the other day. Ina
carefully written "Investment Guidelines" statement by a manufacturing
company, it is announced: "We believe it is reasonable to expect long-
term results superior to the usual market indexes, and the S & P 500

in particular. Specifically, we look for performance better than this
index in all types of market environments." And yes, Virginia, maybe
every football team can have a winning season this year.

-9-

costs with precision, but they certainly must run at least 2% on
average when applied to the round trip of purchase and sale. If an
investment manager, striving for not only acceptable quarterly per-
formance but also for the appearance of behaving as other highly-
thought-of managers are known to be behaving,” moves aggressively

to keep his portfolio in the "right" stocks, he easily can average
turnover rates of 25% per year. When the performance rage peaked,
drastically higher turnover figures were recorded with some managers.

In any event, a 25% turnover rate among professionals as a group,
with 2% costs attached to such turnover, reduces group performance by
1/2 of 1% per annum ($1% billion per year on $300 billion of assets).
This means that, instead of chance dispersal of results causing half
of all managers to fall above the unmanaged performance level (which
has no transaction costs) and half to be below, the frictional drag
of turnover costs causes well over half to perform worse than what
"average" might be assumed to be.

For the reasons set forth above, almost all recent investment manage-
ment performance by pension funds of Large corporations has been fair
to poor. Specifically, the Becker study (most comprehensive of all
pension investment measuring services) reports the following:

Overall Annual Return
Becker Median
§ & P 500 Result*

Last 3 market cycles,

(6/30/62 to 12/31/74) 5.3% 4.1%
Last 2 market cycles,

(9/30/66 to 12/31/74) 2.1% 0.4%
Last single market cycle,

(6/30/70 to 12/31/74) 2.2% (0.3%)

*Excludes bond segment of portfolios so that equity
management only is measured against the equity yard-
stick.

® In the short term, it frequently is better to look smart than

to be smart, particularly if your employment is to be decided by a
rather brief interview. If the fans are going to decide your hiring
status based on only a few swings, it is prudent to develop a batting
style that will remind them of Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams, even if
long-range your percentage of solid hits with that style is small and
you know you obtain better results batting cross-handed.

-1O-

Is There Hope? Can a Wise Corporation Assure Superior Investment
Performance for its Pension Plan?

 

 

If above-average performance is to be their yardstick, the vast ma-
jority of investment managers must fail. Will a few succeed - due
either to chance or skill? Of course. For some intermediate period

of years a few are bound to look better than average due to chance ~
just as would be the case if 1,000 “coin managers” engaged in a coin-
flipping contest. There would be some "winners" over a 5 or 10-flip
measurement cycle. (After five flips, you would expect to have 31

with uniformly “successful” records - who, with their oracular abilities
confirmed in the crucible of the marketplace, would author pedantic
essays on subjects such as pensions.)

In addition to the ones benefitting from short-term luck,

I believe it possible that a few will succeed - in a modest way - be-
cause of skill. I do not believe they can be identified solely by a
study of their past record. They may be operating with a coin that
they know favors heads, and be calling heads each time, but their bare
statistical record will not be distinguishable from the larger group
who have been calling flips indiscriminately and have been lucky ~ so
far.

It may be possible, if you know a good deal about investments as well
as human personality, to talk with a manager who has a decent record
and find that he is using methods which really give an advantage over
other investors, and which appear to be likely to provide continued
superiority in the future. This requires a very wise and informed
elient ~ and even then is not free from pitfalls.

For openers, there is one huge, obvious pitfall. I am virtually cer-
tain that above-average performance cannot be maintained with large
sums of managed money. It is nice to think that $20 billion managed
under one roof will produce financial resources which can hire some
of the world's most effective investment talent. After all, doesn't
the big money at Las Vegas attract the most effective entertainers

to its stages? Surely $50 million amually of fees on $20 billion of
managed assets will allow (a) an array of industry specialists cov-
ering minute-by-minute developments affecting companies within their
purview; (b) top-flight economists to study the movement of the tides;
and (c) nimble, decisive portfolio managers to translate this wealth
of information into appropriate market action.

It just doesn't work that way.

 

-LL-

Down the street there is another $20 billion getting the same input.
Each such organization has its own group of bridge experts cooperat-
ing on identical hands - and they all have read the same book and
consulted the same computers. Furthermore, you just don't move

$20 billion or any significant fraction around easily or inexpens-
ively - particularly not when all eyes tend to be focused on the same
current investment problems and opportunities. An increase in funds
managed: ‘dramatically reduces the number of investment opportunities,
since only companies of very large size can be of any real use in
filling portfolios. More money means fewer choices - and the restric-
tion of those choices to exactly the same bill of fare offered to
others with ravenous financial appetites.

In short, the rational expectation of assuring above average pension
fund:-managenient. is very close to nil.

Illustrations of Reality in Pension Fund Investment Management

I recently received some interesting figures from a pension fund in-
volving about $250 million of assets. The 9-1/2 year record through
June 30, 1975 of the three major banks involved (managing $20 ~ $50
million per bank) follows, compared to "average" as defined in two
ways, the $ & P 500 and the D-J Industrials:

Annual Compounded Rate of

Return (including Dividends)

Dow-Jones Industrials +2,8%
S$ & P 500 +3 8%
Continental Illinois +1.8%
First National City +1,0%
Morgan Guaranty +3 4%

Until recently, Chase had managed a comparable segment of the funds
but was terminated because of poor performance - probably worse than
the other banks shown above. Each percentage point plus or minus
affected this fund by about $2 to $4 million over the time period
measured.

A further interesting calculation was made. On June 30, of the port-
folio held by Continental, 64% of the securities held, measured by
market value, also were in the Morgan portfolio and 44% were duplicated
in the First National City portfolio. Similar overlap was demon-
strated in other ways.

 

-12-

I am familiar enough with the record of this fund to state that no
unusual constraints have been placed on the managers, and no spec-
ial factors have to be recognized to interpret the numbers.

I believe that Morgan's above-average record here, compared to that
of other large banks, is typical of its relative performance at
other pension funds. I also feel the predictive value of that rela-
tive standing to be low.

Pensions & Investments magazine recently rated the 35 largest banks
for which five-year performance records of commingled equity funds
were available. Ten did as well as or better than the § & P, con-
sistent with what might be expected according to probability theory

if everyone were operating solely according to chance and there was

a modest drag on performance caused by transaction costs. More im-
portantly, I know of no set of statistics which would demonstrate

any opposite view relating to managers handling large amounts of money.

The evidence all seems to confirm that it is unwise to expect above-
average investment results from a corporate pension plan, conventionally
managed.

Major Options in Pension Fund Management

With respect to pension fund investments in securities, several paths
ean be followed, singly or in combination:

(1) One or more Large conventional money managers may be
retained, with the expectation that performance will be
slightly poorer than "average" because of costs involved. If
the manager is very Large and conventional - any major bank
will do - directors of the corporation should run no risk of
imprudent behavior as fiduciaries under the new ERISA statute.
Conventional behavior is safe - even when the potential Liti-
gants have the benefit of hindsight. If we should go this
route, I see no reason to change from Morgan.

(2) Management in security selection can be, in essence,
abandoned by simply creating a portfolio which is equivalent

to "average". This minimizes turnover and management costs,

and probably accomplishes about the same result as (1) - perhaps
with just a touch more potential liability for results, since

a tacit admission has been made that no effort is being ex-
pended to "manage”. Several funds have been established fairly
recently to duplicate the averages, quite explicitly embodying

-13-

the principle that no management is cheaper, and slightly
better than average paid management after transaction costs.
This policy could be implemented by participating in such
funds, or on a do-it-yourself basis.

(3) A manager can be found handling smaller amounts whose
record has been good for the right reasons.

Then hope that no one else finds him.

Good records of any type usually have attracted massive money
flows - whether the record was based on unusual skill, luck,
or even, occasionally, semi-fraudulent activity which has
‘tmanufactured” the record. Even those records which I believe
to have been based at least partially on skill have wilted
when subjected to torrents of money.

A further problem is that in no case were the superior records
I have observed based upon institutional skills which could be
maintained despite changes in the faces. Rather, the good
results have been accomplished by a single individual or, at
most, a few, working in fairly specialized areas in which the
great bulk of investment money simply had no interest. It has
been very difficult to out-think the pack on General Motors,
IBM, Sears, etc. Rather, the unusual records - and there have
been few that have been maintained - have been achieved by
those who have worked relatively neglected fields in which com-
petition was Light.

Many pension funds, including the fund to which I referred
earlier, have attempted to find superior but relatively unknown
managers still working with small sums. This often involves
dozens of interviews and usually comes down to the past record,

* Your win-loss percentage in tennis will not be determined by the
absolute level of ability that you possess. Rather, it will be de-
termined by your ability to select inferior opponents. If you select
with care it will be quite easy to attain a winning percentage higher
than, say, Cliff Richey while he is playing on the tour. Application
of this principle is the key element in bridge, poker, or investments.
(Harder to apply in the latter, however - it is easier to identify a
couple of palookas at’ the bridge: table.)

~Li-

particularly the recent past, plus an articulate practitioner
who "looks" reasonable and respectable. In my opinion, based
only on impressions, the overall record from this selection
process has been poor and very Likely worse than the mildly
below-average record of the major money manager.

The reason isn't too hard to see (particularly with a rear

view mirror). Much of Wall Street is a succession of fashions.
Obviously some individuals will have hit the most recent
fashion, and their record will look correspondingly good -
maybe sensationally good if they have a reckless streak and
have played a particular trend very hard. But fashion-hitting
never has been successfully maintained, to my knowledge. And
the manager primarily selected for recent hot performance knows
what he is expected to do. He is to perform - and quickly. So
the new small manager's decisions frequently are characterized
by high turnover, major mistakes, even more furious activity to
catch up, etc. It has not happened every time, but my hunch is
that the sum total performance of the relatively unknown go-go
managers for pension funds has been worse than the lumbering,
stiff-legged minuet performed by the major banks,

(4) A fixed income (bonds) investment strategy can be followed,
which presently allows returns of about 9% per annum that can
be locked in for some time. This option currently is becoming
somewhat more popular, should be quite defensible under ERISA,
and will look good or bad, depending upon what returns from
equity holdings develop over the next decade or two. This
essentially is the same decision that was made by default sev-
eral. decades ago by many companies, except the rates then were
496 instead of 9%. I do not recommend an attempt by us to go
back and forth from bonds to stocks. This is a skill possessed
by few, if any - and certainly not by a group. If we could
master this particular form of alchemy, there would be Little
reason to do anything else.

The comfort level produced by this option is likely to be

high under any conditions except high rates of inflation -
which will produce distress under all of the options discussed
herein.

 

~L5-

(5) My final option - and the one to which I lean, although
not at anything Like a 4#S-degree angle - is mildly unconven-
tional, thereby causing somewhat more legal risk for
directors. It may differ from other common stock programs,
more in attitude than in appearance, or even results. It in-
volves treating portfolio management decisions much Like
business acquisition decisions by corporate managers.

 

The directors and officers of the company consider themselves

to be quite capable of making business decisions, including
decisions regarding the long-term attractiveness of specific
business operations purchased at specific prices. We have made
decisions to purchase several television businesses, a newspaper
business, ete. And in other relationships we have made such
judgments covering a much wider spectrum of business operations.

Negotiated prices for such purchases of entire businesses often
are dramatically higher than stock market valuations attrib-
utable to well-managed similar operations. Longer term, rewards
to owners in both cases will flow from such investments propor-
tional to the economic results of the business. By buying small
pieces of businesses through the stock market rather than

entire businesses through negotiation, several disadvantages
occur: (a) the right to manage, or select managers, is for-
feited; (b) the right to determine dividend policy or direct

the areas of internal reinvestment is absent; (c) ability to
borrow Long-term against the business assets (versus against the
stock position) is greatly reduced; and (d) the opportunity to
sell the business on a full-value, private~owner basis is for-
feited.

‘These are important negative factors but, if a group of invest-
ments are carefully chosen at a bargain price, it can minimize the
impact of a single bad experience in, say, the management area,
which cannot be corrected. And occasionally there is an

* I am leaving most of the legal discussion out of this memo ~- partly
due to space considerations and partly because it is not my field. In
general, the safest course is to behave as most others are behaving - and
to trust in the expertise of large, well-regarded conventional organ-
izations. I also believe it is defensible - although not as automat-
ically defensible - to diversify among a group of well-financed en-
trenched businesses purchased at reasonable valuations of earnings and
assets.

-l6-

offsetting advantage which can be of very substantial value -
but_for which nothing should be paid at the time of purchase.
That relates to the periodic tendency of stock markets to ex-
perience excesses which cause businesses - when changing hands
in small pieces through stock transactions - to sell at

prices significantly above privately-determined negotiated
values. At such times, holdings may be liquidated at better
prices than if the whole business were owned - and, due to the
impersonal nature of securities markets, no moral stigma need
be attached to dealing with such unwitting buyers.

Stock market prices may bounce wildly and irrationally but, if
decisions regarding internal rates of return of the business

are reasonably correct - and a small portion of the business

is bought at a fraction of its private-owner value ~- a good
return for the fund should be assured over the time span against
which pension fund results should be measured.

It might be asked what the difference is between this approach
and simply picking stocks a la Morgan, Scudder, Stevens, etc.
It is, in large part, a matter of attitude, whereby the results
of the business become the standard against which measurements
are made rather than quarterly stock prices. It embodies a long
time span for judgment confirmation, just as does an investment
by a corporation in a major new division, plant or product. It
treats stock ownership as business ownership with the corres~
ponding adjustment in mental set. And it demands an excess of
value over price paid, not merely a favorable short-term
earnings or stock market outlook. General stock market consid-
erations simply don't enter into the purchase decision.

Finally, it rests on a belief, which both seems logical and
which has been borne out historically in securities markets,
that intrinsic business value is the eventual prime determinant
of stock prices. In the words of my former boss: "In the short
run the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a
weighing machine.”

Specifically, it probably is possible to invest the $12 million

in our pension fund in a dozen businesses (maybe more; ERISA
emphasizes diversification) with current intrinsic value (measured
by private-owner valuations and transactions) attributable to

our investment of, say, $20 million and current earnings of at
least $1.5 million. The portion of such earnings paid out to

us clearly is worth 100 cents on the dollar, and a reasonable

-17-

batting average by the managements of companies in which we
invest should result in the portion reinvested having similar
value. If this is the case, such a “pension division" opera-
tion will produce better returns than bond investment at
eurrent rates.

The main long-term risk would be that future returns on cap-
ital obtained by our "division managers” would turn sour. In
some individual case that undoubtedly would prove true. It
might well be that there also would be a favorable surprise

or two. That is true of any acquisition program. The one
substantial advantage that this "division" would have would be
attractive purchase prices - far below those available for
purchasers of entire businesses. If purchases could not be
made on such a “bargain” basis, we simply would wait until they
could. A second advantage would be the flexibility provided
by a public stock market, allowing portions of business opera-
tions to be acquired or divested much more easily than entire
operating businesses.

It must be emphasized that measurement of this program would
have to be based on the progress in our share of earnings and
assets of the constituent companies - not short-term market
movements. We would expect substantial increases in earnings,
dividends and asset values over, say, a decade just as we expect
with our operating divisions at Washington Post. We would, in
mental approach, have created a new diversified division, cur-
rently capitalized at about $12 million, which is expected to
earn a better-than-bond rate with which to eventually pay re-
tired employees. In a sense, this is what was done in the
profit-sharing fund when it accumulated Washington Post stock
throughout earlier years - basically a wise decision because
the business earned very well internally and thereby grew in
value at a substantial rate. It was an attractive partially-
owned business, acquired at an attractive price. Until market
prices were introduced, which complicated things, the funds
built up through this self-owning division were significantly
larger than would have been achieved by buying bonds or the
general run of common stocks,

If it should be decided to implement such a policy, recommenda-
tions should be obtained from qualified analysts who clearly
understand our rather unusual selection criteria, This could
be handled on a quite infrequent basis.

 

 

-18-

As mentioned earlier, a policy also could be followed combining more
than one option. Most combinations have been (1) and (3), or (1) and
C4), but (4) and (5) could well be more logical.

Pension Asset Management in the Scale of Business Priorities

Of course, the desirability of even considering something non~conven-
tional (not to be equated with more risk; the exclusive benefit
provision of ERISA requires fiduciaries to discharge their duties
"solely in the interests of the participants and beneficiaries") relates
to the relative impact pension results can have on overall earnings.

One of my friends always reminds me: “If a thing's not worth doing at
all, it's not worth doing well." If our pension assets were $1 million
and Likely to grow only a few hundred thousand dollars a year, it would
be ridiculous to..think of any activity that might incur even unwarranted
eriticism,eLetralone Litigation. On the other hand,:if we had U.S,
Steel's pension situation, we might want to make a truly top priority
project out of pension asset management (as they have), even if we
might slightly increase personal risks to directors by so doing.

We fall in between although, if you look through to the plans to which
we contribute but don't manage (Guild, mechanical, etc.)"we are

moving more in the direction of U. S. Steel. It is likely that within
ten years we will have $40 million in our direct pension "division" and
further substantial sums in other plans presently on an indirect

basis. Earnings of businesses purchased through this "division" should
run at least $5 million per year.

® In prior years it was felt that by limiting contributions to

union plans to so much per shift, or per hour, management was relieved
of responsibility for any specific level of benefits, as well as
pension fund administration. The shield of this "hands off" position
is eroding and we should recognize that we may well have responsibility
at some future date for benefits promised under these plans, which we
originally thought involved only defined contributions. With this in
prospect, we may wish to gain at least partial command over fund
investments in this area.

 

 

~19-

Summing up:

(1) If the economic world turns out to be one of sustained double-
digit inflation - probably still unlikely but not unthinkable - among
the carnage will be private pension plans. The investment process
can do little to modify that disaster. Hope lies mainly in the care
with which past promises have been made, and the ownership of a
business whose economic characteristics allow pass-through pricing
which includes a large part of past labor costs, as well as full cur-
rent costs.

(2) In a more orderly world, the care with which promises have been
worded remains important, but on a scale that diminishes as inflation
moderates. Conventional approaches to money management should not

be expected to produce above average results. But average will be
perfectly acceptable at low inflation rates.

(3) A mildly non-conventional investment approach, emphasizing a
business approach to security selection, gives some opportunity for

long-term results slightly above average without corresponding in-
crease in investment risk.

Warren E. Buffett

October 14, 1975