Among the 30,000 pilgrims to the shrine of legendary investor Warren Buffett for today's annual meeting of his company in Nebraska will be Scott Allison, managing director at Glasgow-based telecoms firm Abica.
Allison made the trip last year to sit at the feet of the "Sage of Omaha" and gained an audience with the man whose fortune was then estimated at more than $60bn.
"A lot has happened in the past year and it will be interesting to hear what he has to say this time around", Allison said from his US hotel, awaiting the event known as the "Woodstock for capitalists".
He said: "Money can't buy you access to the likes of Warren Buffett and his number two, Charlie Munger. These people make themselves available on the day and I'm simply not going to pass up that kind of opportunity."
As well as attending the meeting as a shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, Allison will join a special session of the Entrepreneurs Organisation, the international equiva- lent of Scotland's Entrepreneurial Exchange. Abica, chaired by former Scottish Telecom chief Rod Matthews, has a three-year UK expansion plan and expects rapid growth in last year's profitable £1.1m turnover.
On Buffett's advice to investors, Allison says: "He is usually pretty straight on this - if you are not a full-time investor, don't try to pick the stocks, buy into a fund, and even if you are a professional investor, stick to your circle of competence. He knows nothing about technology so he has never touched technology stocks at all."
Buffett's review of the past year would be intriguing. "He is a very humble guy, and I expect he will say where he got it wrong."
Berkshire Hathaway Inc, the insurance company Buffett has run since 1965, owns close to 80 companies and invests in dozens of stocks.
Its star investments over the years include Geico, which has tripled its share of the US auto insurance market since Berkshire bought the entire company, and which generated about 12% of Berkshire's revenue in 2008. It first bought into Gillette 20 years ago and still holds a stake worth $5.7bn, nine times what it paid.
It has held an 8.6% stake in Coca-Cola for 15 years, now worth more than $9bn on a purchase cost of $1.3bn.
But not all Buffett's picks have come good. He called Dexter Shoe "the worst deal I've made" in 2007 after writing off much of a $433m investment made in 1993.
Famously in 2008, Buffett amassed a large stake in oil giant ConocoPhillips, just before oil prices crashed from $145 a barrel. He had lost $2.6bn on his $7bn investment by the year end and Buffett has admitted that even if the oil price recovers, "the terrible timing of my purchase has cost Berkshire several billion dollars".
Berkshire has also entered into complex derivatives contracts, over 250 of them, which essentially bet on the long-term growth of stocks and junk bonds. They expose the insurer to paper liabilities of $14bn - and theoretical potential losses of $63bn if markets went into complete meltdown. But Buffett has said he is comfortable with his bets.
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