This is the first in a series of weekly posts aimed at establishing a process for becoming a better investor through deliberate practice, based on suggestions found in Moonwalking with Einstein and Outliers. I will post my analysis of the company, as well as a post-mortem of how the investment played out (if we’re studying a historical investment) and the next investment for analysis, next weekend. Please be sure to review why we’re doing this and my suggestions/instructions if you’ve yet to do so, and please leave your analysis in the comments of this post before next weekend if you choose to participate.**** This is our first post on deliberate practice, so I thought we’d kick the process off with a bang, by studying from the master himself.
Many of you know that Dairy Queen is today a small part of the Berkshire Conglomerate. What you may not know is that Berkshire acquired it in 1997, and it was public up until it was acquired.
And, thus, our first deliberate practice challenge: Attempt to value Dairy Queen in the year before Buffett bought it.
Some additional notes before I provide the relevant links: so as not to bias yourself, I encourage you not to look for any other press or filings related to the acquisition, other than the ones I provide below. I bet there’s almost zero chance that you know what Buffett actually acquired them for, so why risk the anchoring bias? I will provide all forms of follow up links in my post-mortem on the investment next weekend.
One last thing: Buffett successfully acquired DQ in late 1997, but I believe he also offered to buy them out (at a higher price!) in 1996. So, while I will give you the last 10-Q before Buffett bought them, feel free to value them exclusively on the two 10-Ks.
That said- here are the four relevant links.
Many of you know that Dairy Queen is today a small part of the Berkshire Conglomerate. What you may not know is that Berkshire acquired it in 1997, and it was public up until it was acquired.
And, thus, our first deliberate practice challenge: Attempt to value Dairy Queen in the year before Buffett bought it.
Some additional notes before I provide the relevant links: so as not to bias yourself, I encourage you not to look for any other press or filings related to the acquisition, other than the ones I provide below. I bet there’s almost zero chance that you know what Buffett actually acquired them for, so why risk the anchoring bias? I will provide all forms of follow up links in my post-mortem on the investment next weekend.
One last thing: Buffett successfully acquired DQ in late 1997, but I believe he also offered to buy them out (at a higher price!) in 1996. So, while I will give you the last 10-Q before Buffett bought them, feel free to value them exclusively on the two 10-Ks.
That said- here are the four relevant links.
- 10-k for year end Nov. 1996 (you probably only need this- they provide plenty of financial info)
- 10-k for year end Nov. 1995
- Last 10-Q, for quarter end Aug. 1997
- Last proxy statement before merger announcement
