A Weekend With Warren Buffett And Other Shareholder Meeting Adventures By Randy Cepuch

This is an odd little book. I have to admit, if I'd known that Warren Buffett would occupy only one short chapter, I probably wouldn't have even started to read it. Yet after I read some of it, I decided to go ahead and finish.

It's sort of an investing human interest book. The author decided to attend the shareholder annual meetings of lots of different companies, and report on the results.

After all, conventional financial investing advice is to fully investigate companies, and ultimately that includes attending their annual meetings. He includes not only his observations, but how what he saw affected his subsequent treatment of that company's stock. For example, after attending Playboy's meeting, he sold his shares of its stock, because he could tell from their meeting they were uninterested in the concerns of ordinary shareholders. After all, Hugh still owns about 70%, so what the owners of the other 30% think and feel is of no moment to them. However, his belief that Hugh's daughter who runs the company is out of touch with today's marketplace also affected his decision (she insists modern young men think the Playboy bunny symbol is cool).

Personally, I can't think why I'd ever want to attend such a meeting, with the possible exception of the wine company whose annual meeting is one long dinner party. I don't believe in owning individual stocks, and doubt you can learn anything that other analysts can't already figure out (he didn't need to go to Playboy's shareholder meeting to learn that Hugh owns 70%, for example).

But the different meetings were so different that it is an interesting if quite lightweight book.

He starts off with going to the meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, which of course is highly popular -- the rock concert of shareholder meetings. He did meet Warren Buffett and gives us some of the Sage of Omaha's advice.

I was quite surprised by his description of Wal-Mart's meeting. It was basically an Amway-style pep rally designed for the employees -- who were most of the stockholders in attendance. Wal-Mart is owned by many people. You mean nobody else made it down to Bentonville for the meeting, besides employees and this book's author?

He grades all companies by four criteria: Educational Value, Entertainment Value, Freebies and Food & Drink. No company had a perfect score.

I remember that my mother sometimes went to dinners for Ralston Purina shareholders. She was luckier than she realized. Many companies provide only coffee and danish. Some provide nothing at all.

He also went to meetings of companies in Australia and the United Kingdom, though his ownership of American Depository Receipts (ADRs) did not give him voting rights. Plus, he attended an interesting meeting of Disney, when shareholders including Walt's nephew attacked Michael Eisner.

It also turns out that he's not the only dedicated meeting attender. There's a woman who makes a point of attending meetings at lots of these companies, and then submitting tons of stockholder resolutions and asking lots of questions to cause trouble.

Stockholders who do so intelligently (and the author provides some historical background on this) can change things for the better, but too many of the meetings seemed to attract dingbats.

Me, I have to admit I'm not qualified to give the CEOs advice on how to run the companies. I don't want to vote. I don't want to attend meetings. I just want to collect dividends.

by: Richard Stooker

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