Professor Glen Arnold

The Agriculture Division: This collection of businesses manufactures and supplies agricultural inputs including 300,000 tonnes per year of feed for animals. It offers a full range of animal nutritional products, e.g. feed blocks and has two compound feed mills and a blending plant of its own, but also uses third party mills to satisfy additional seasonal […]

I first bought Wynnstay Group shares (LSE:WYN – not Wynnstay Properties) a year ago at 317.4p.  They have since reported robust results in the face of both Brexit and Covid.  The impressive profits history and the strong strategic and financial position they enjoy in the post-Brexit world serving farmers and other rural folk means I […]

When Dave Sokol took over the management of NetJets at Warren Buffett’s request in 2009 he hit the ground running. Within a week he had reshaped the managerial structure, including appointing a new head for NetJets North America and a new Chief Operating Officer. He also announced that NetJets’ headquarters would be relocated from Woodbridge, […]

Buffett’s 2009 letter included a mea culpa, “It’s clear that I failed you in letting NetJets descend into this condition”. It lost $711m in 2009 and the aggregate loss over Berkshire’s eleven years of ownership was $157m. And the Great Recession was only just getting going. There was plenty of room for regretting this investment decision. […]

With Berkshire Hathaway behind them the managers at Netjets really went for growth after the 1998 merger. Within two years revenue had more than doubled and customers held $2bn worth of planes. As early as 1998 Buffett asked Santulli “Who’s the competition in Europe?” to which he replied “No one.” Then Buffett pointedly said, “What […]

This newsletter is instructive in two ways (a) the priorities in business deal-making (b) looking for the qualitative factors making a business attractive even when short term profits are non-existent. Why sell? Goldman Sachs in 1998 wanted to realise a return on its 25% stake, or at least obtain a market value and trading for […]

In 1984 Richard Santulli bought a small loss-making private jet hire company called Executive Jet Aviation, EJA.  He thought it might be useful as a dumping ground for aircraft coming off leasing deals, his main business. Little did he know that he would soon invent a completely new type of business, one that was so […]

When asked about the influence of the French Revolution, the late Chinese premier Zhou Enlai is reputed to have said: ‘Too early to say.’ It’s much the same with Buffett’s August 1998 investment in NetJets, at $725m. For the next 11 years it made an aggregate loss of $157m. By 2010 the investment was certainly […]

It’s important to examine MS International (LSE:MSI) with an income metric better than conventional profits after tax, which fails to properly consider the annual cash flows which end up being spent on fixed assets and in working capital items (inventory and receivables in particular) just to support the current strategic market position, and therefore turnover […]

MS International (LSE:MSI) has a very strong balance sheet and decent profits history.  But what about the relationship between the two?  Given the large amount of net assets devoted to the operating business, does it generate a good rate of return on the money invested? With a Warren Buffett-style investment I expect to hold “forever”.  […]