1995: Does Berkshire consider investments abroad?
Ken Donovant: Well, I’m Ken Donovant, a Cincinnati investor. You’ve discussed your feelings about buying entire foreign corporations. Could you elaborate on whether Berkshire is looking for opportunities to buy what we might call near-franchise companies based overseas, perhaps by acquiring a stock interest or a partial interest? Also, how do you feel about fixed-debt investments in overseas companies?
Warren Buffett: Debt investments, was that?
Ken Donovant: Yes. The first part was about buying stock investments rather than whole companies.
Warren Buffett: Right.
Ken Donovant: And the second part was about debt investments.
Warren Buffett: Well, we’re open to buying anything. When you ask if we’re looking at them, I’ve never been quite sure how we approach these opportunities. They tend to pop up from reading or other similar means. However, it’s less likely we would end up making such investments for some of the reasons I’ve mentioned earlier.
We have bought stock in companies that are domiciled outside the United States—aside from Guinness, of course. We could conceivably buy debt instruments, but we don’t typically purchase many debt instruments overall, so that would be very unlikely.
In essence, we will consider anything that makes sense for Berkshire and aligns with our operational style. The domicile of the company is not a significant factor for us.