Weekend with Warren Buffett: And Other Shareholder Meeting Adventures by Randy Cepuch

Product Details

Synopsis

Once a year, the managers of public companies have to fling open the doors and let the owners in — whether they want to or not. A Weekend with Warren Buffett and Other Shareholder Meeting Adventures is a humorous, informative business-related travelogue that looks at how companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia treat their investors during the brief period when the welcome mat is out. It’s an Average Joe Investor’s search for shareholder democracy and an occasional free lunch.
Companies featured include Berkshire Hathaway, Citigroup, Dow Jones, Dupont, eBay, Gannett, Google, Hawaiian Electric, Hershey, MGM Grand, Microsoft, Otter Tail, Playboy, Starbucks, Tootsie Roll, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney, among others.

Publishers Weekly

Few investors show up at annual shareholders' meetings or return proxy forms because the agenda is usually technical and the votes foregone conclusions. But Cepuch shows readers how much they're missing with this highly entertaining account of 24 meetings rated for Educational Value, Entertainment Value, Freebies, and Food and Drink. The meetings range from elaborate productions at companies like Berkshire Hathaway and Wal-Mart to dull affairs staged at lawyers' insistence, at companies like Playboyand Microsoft. Managers are feisty or embattled or folksy or worshipped; shareholders are probing or gushing or disgruntled or incoherent. Yet Cepuch unobtrusively works in valuable material for investors about knowing your companies, thinking like an owner and paying attention. It requires no specialized training to judge whether managers are honest, competent and focused on running a sound and profitable business, he points out. There's a bit more discussion of fonts and other presentation items than most readers will appreciate, but this can be forgiven in a former annual report writer. Overall, this ranks among the best commonsense investment books, and is certainly one of the most fun to read. (Mar.)

Biography

Randy Cepuch is a financial writer with 25 years of experience helping millions of mutual fund shareholders in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Asia, and Australia to understand their investments. Currently, he is a securities dispute arbitrator.